THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

RIVERSIDE 


J 


Ex  Libris 
C.  K.  OGDEN 


^ 


/fi5 , 


Shakspere  to  Sheridan 


Stacic  of  thk  Duke's  Theatre,  Dorset  Garden,  1673 


SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

A  BOOK  ABOUT  THE  THEATRE  OF 
YESTERDAY  AND  TO-DAY 


BY 

ALWIN  THALER,  Ph.D. 

ASSISTANT  PROFESSOR  OF  ENGLISH  IN  THE 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 


With  Illustrations  from  the  Harvard  Theatre  Collection 


CAMBRIDGE 
HARVARD  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

LONDON:  HUMPHREY  MILFORD 
OxTORD  Univeesity  Press 

1922 


COPYRIGHT,  192a 
HARVARD  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 


TO 
GEORGE  LYMAN  KITTREDGE 


Preface 

A  BOOK  about  the  theatre,  like  the  theatre  itself, 
ought  to  be  conscious  of  the  varied  demands  of  the 
audience  it  seeks  to  attract.  I  believe,  moreover,  that  — 
like  the  theatre  again  —  it  may  best  fulfill  its  purpose 
by  offering  something  of  "profit  or  deUght"  to  all  sorts 
and  conditions  of  people.  At  all  events  I  have  consist- 
ently aimed  to  make  this  book  at  once  useful  and  in- 
teresting, and  that  no  less  to  students  than  to  readers 
and  theatre-goers  in  general.  In  the  last  analysis,  I 
think,  these  aims  are  logically  one  and  the  same,  though 
I  am  aware  that  ways  and  means  may  differ.  At  worst, 
the  notes,  appendices,  and  index  of  this  book  will  not 
trouble  the  casual  reader.  I  hope  they  will  prove  serv- 
iceable to  fellow  students. 

To  sketch  here  the  general  bearings  and  implications 
of  my  subject  would  be  to  exceed  the  limits  of  a  preface. 
Such  a  sketch,  therefore,  forms  the  subject  matter  of 
the  introductory  chapter.  One  point,  however,  I  should 
like  to  make  at  once.  This  book  treats  of  the  life  story 
of  the  theatre  in  Shakspere's  time  and  during  the  two 
centuries  after  him  as  of  one  organic  whole:  it  seeks  to 
draw  a  living  cross-section  thereof.  By  choice  and  by 
necessity  earlier  investigators  have,  as  a  rule,  devoted 
themselves  to  more  narrowly  circumscribed  periods  of 
dramatic  or  theatrical  history.  We  have  had  invaluable 
contributions  to  our  knowledge  of  this  or  that  aspect  of 
the  Shaksperean  field,  and  to  this  or  that  special  period 
or  phenomenon  of  later  times,  —  but  all  too  much  of 
the  new  information  is  still  kept  in  water-tight  com- 
partments. My  underlying  purpose  here,  then,  is  to 
show  how  continuous  has  been  the  great  tradition :  how 


viii  PREFACE 

minutely  and  circumstantially  the  theatre  of  the  seven- 
teenth and  the  eighteenth  century  modelled  its  activi- 
ties upon  those  of  Shakspere  and  his  fellows,  and  to 
suggest,  in  turn,  how  much  the  theatre  of  our  day  and 
hour  owes  to  that  of  yesterday. 

Since  novelty,  nevertheless,  is  a  virtue  upon  which  all 
things  theatrical  thrive,  I  hope  that  the  point  of  view, 
the  materials,  and  the  illustrations  of  this  book  will  not 
be  found  altogether  lacking  in  things  that  are  new  — 
or  so  old  and  long  forgotten  as  to  have  become  new  once 
more.  From  the  very  nature  of  the  case,  however,  my 
indebtedness  to  the  labors  of  countless  earlier  investiga- 
tors appears  on  every  page  of  the  book,  and  this  I  ac- 
knowledge gladly  here  and  in  the  notes.  Library  officials 
in  this  country  and  in  England  have  been  invariably 
helpful  in  making*rare  materials  accessible  to  me. 

It  is  a  still  keener  pleasure  to  express  my  gratitude  to 
friends  and  scholars  whose  wise  counsel  and  generous 
assistance  will  in  some  measure,  I  trust,  be  reflected  in 
the  immediate  texture  of  the  book.  I  have  to  thank  Dr. 
William  Allan  Neilson  for  early  suggestions  and  criti- 
cism, and  I  am  heavily  indebted  to  Mr.  Robert  Gould 
Shaw  for  expert  advice  in  the  choice  of  illustrations  from 
the  Harvard  Theatre  Collection.  In  this  and  in  all  other 
respects,  however,  from  the  beginning  to  the  very  end  I 
owe  most  to  Professor  Kittredge,  whose  great  learning  and 
greater  kindness  —  in  small  things  as  in  large  —  proved 
to  me  (as  it  long  since  has  to  others)  an  unfailing  source 
of  aid  and  comfort. 


Contents 


List  of  Illustrations,    i xi 

I.   Old  Lamps  and  New 3 

IL   The  Playwrights 22 

IIL   The  Players 70 

IV.  The  Managers 105 

V.  The  Theatres  and  the  Court 156 

VI.  The  Playhouses > 202 

1.  Financing 202 

2.  Box-Office  and  Repertory 221 

3.  Costumes  and  Properties 245 

4.  Advertising 258 

Appendix  I.  Extracts  from  the  Lord  Chamberlain's 
Books,  1 661-1683,  Concerning  Allowances  to 
Players  and  Managers,  and  the  Regulation  of  the 

Stage 287 

Appendix  II.    Rates  of  Admission  in  the  Elizabethan 

Theatre 295 

Appendix  III.  On  the  Size  of  the  Elizabethan  Play- 
houses    311 

Index 313 


List  of  Illustrations 

PAGE 

1.  The  Stage  of  the  Duke's  Theatre,  Dorset  Garden, 

with  a  naval  scene Frontispiece 

From  a  copperplate  (7 1  X  4I)  by  W.  Dolle  in  Elkanah 
Settle's  tragedy,  The  Empress  of  Morocco,  quarto,  1673. 

The  stage  direction  (act  ii,  scene  i)  reads:  "The  Scene  opened,  is 
represented  the  Prospect  of  a  large  River,  with  a  glorious  Fleet  of 
Ships:  supposed  to  be  the  Navy  of  Muley  Hamet."   See  No.  28. 

2.  Mrs.  Midnight's  Animal  Comedians 9 

From  a  copperplate  (6f  X  9I)  dated  1753. 

See  Hawkesworth,  The  Adventurer,  No.  19,  January  9,  1753. 

3.  Bill  advertising  John  Harris's  Puppet  Show,  Bar- 

tholomew Fair      11 

From  the  original  (7!  X  5I). 

The  show  includes  Fair  Rosamond,  The  Lancashire  Witches,  Friar 
Bacon,  etc. 

4.  The  Elephant  in  the  Grand  Procession  of  the  New 

Comic  Pantomime  called  Harlequin  and  Pad- 
manaba      16 

From  a  lithograph  (9!  X  7 1)  published  by  W.  West,  Jan- 
uary 13,  1 8 12. 

This  Christmas  pantomime  was  announced  in  a  Covent  Garden  play- 
bill of  December  12,  1811,  and  was  first  produced  on  December  26. 
The  playbill  for  December  26  reads:  "This  present  THURSDAY,  Dec. 
26,  1 81 1,  will  be  acted  the  Tragedy  of  GEORGE  BARNWELL.  .  .  . 
After  which  will  be  produced,  for  the  first  time,  a  NEW  PANTO- 
MIME, called  Harlequin  &  Padmanaba  or,  THE  GOLDEN  FISH," 
etc.  The  piece  had  a  run  of  forty-eight  nights,  closing  on  March  16, 
l8i2.  The  bill  for  February  8  (36th  time)  contains  the  following 
notice:  "  The  Publick  are  respectfully  informed  that  after  This  Evening 
the  ELEPHANT  must  necessarily  be  withdrawn  from  the  new  Panto- 
mime." 

5.  "Hans  Buling,  a  Mountebank  of  great  Notoriety 

who  frequently  exhibited  in  Covent  Garden. 
From  a  Delft  plate  on  the  back  of  which  are  the 
initials  B.  S.  1750"      20 

From  an  aquatint  (8f  X  8f)  "I.  R.  Cruikshank  fecit." 


xii  LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

6.  Inside  View  of  the  Theatre  Royal,  Drury  Lane,  as 

it  appears  from  the  Stage,  altered  and  decorated 

in  the  year  1775 35 

From  an  engraving  by  Benedetto  Pastorini  (14J  X  22) 
published  in  1776.     Cf.  No.  20. 

7.  Ticket  for  The  Beggar  s  Opera  at  the  Theatre  Royal 

in  Lincoln's  Inn  Fields.   Benefit  of  Mrs.  Cantrell, 

May  4,  1730 52 

From  the  original  (full  size). 

Pit,  J  S,  and  No  loj  are  written  in.    For  other  benefit  tickets  sec  Nos. 
12,36. 

8.  Two  documents  signed  by  Colley  Cibber,  Robert 

Wilks,  and  Barton  Booth,  Managers  of  Drury 

Lane 64 

From  the  originals  (reduced). 

The  first, dated  January  17, 1718  [-19],  is  an  agreement  "that  no  Play 

shall  be  receiv'd  into  the  House,  or  the  Parts  of  any  Play  be  order'd  to 

be  written  out,  but  by  an  order  under  the  Hands  of  three  of  the 

Menagers." 

The  second  directs  that  "M"  Willis  be  enter'd  at  forty  shills  per  week 

from  sat:    28'''  Nov''  I7i9,"and  that  "M"  Hunt  be  reduced  to  forty 

shills  per  week  only,  from  y®  same  day,  Nov'  28*^  1719-" 

9.  Mrs.  Elizabeth  Barry  (1658-1713)  as  Zara  in  Con- 

greve's  tragedy.  The  Mourning  Bride 79 

From  a  contemporary  print  (6|  X  7f ). 

Mrs.  Barry  created  this  part  at  Betterton's  New  Theatre  in  Lincoln's 
Inn  Fields  in  1697. 

10.  Edward  Shuter,  the  comedian  (1728?-! 776)  ...       85 
From  a  mezzotint,  1773  (i2|  X  9!):  "P.  Dawe  Fecit." 

11.  Playbill  of  the  Theatre  in  Smock  Alley,  Dublin, 

January  25,  1737  [-8]:   Comedy  of  The  Sharper: 
Benefit  of  the  Author,  Michael  Clancy    ....       93 

From  the  original  (7f  X  5i)>  one  of  the  oldest  known 

Irish  playbills. 

12.  Benefit  tickets      97 

From  the  originals. 

I.  Drury  Lane.   Benefit  of  The  Widow  and  Orphan  of 
Stephen  Storace,  Musician  and  Composer,  May  25, 
1796(21  X3I). 
Printed  in  blue.   The  number  and  the  signature  arc  written  in. 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS  xiii 

2.  Theatre  Royal,  Haymarket.  Benefit  of  the  Four 
Youngest  Orphans  of  John  Palmer,  August  i8, 
1798  (3i  X  4f ). 

Printed  in  red.  N° S7  and  W.  J.  are  written  in. 
The  three  benefits  for  Palmer's  children  were  on  August  13  (at  the 
Theatre  Royal  in  Liverpool),  August  i8  (at  the  Haymarket  Opera 
House,  by  the  Little  Theatre  company),  and  September  15  (at  Drury 
Lane).  According  to  a  petition  from  one  of  the  three,  Jemimah  Sarah 
Palmer,  to  the  Master  of  the  Rolls,  1799  (MS.  in  the  Harvard  Theatre 
Collection)  the  proceeds  were  about  £480,  £500,  and  £800.  For 
other  benefit  tickets  see  Nos.  7,  36. 

13.  Playbill,  Drury  Lane,  May  24,  1770 99 

From  the  original  (9!  X  6|). 

"BY  PARTICULAR  DESIRE.  Towards  Raising  a  FUND,  for  the 
RELIEF  of  those  who  from  their  Infirmities  shall  be  obliged  to  retire 
from  the  Stage."    Garrick  acted  Kitely  in  Every  Man  in  his  Humour. 

14.  Henry  Mossop  (1729-1774?)  as  Bajazet  in  Rowe's 

Tamerlane iii 

From  a  contemporary  etching  (i  i  f  X  7f ), "  printed  for  J. 
Gapper,  at  N°  56,  in  New  Bond  Street,  London." 

15.  Holograph  document  addressed  by  John  Rich  to 

Booth,  Cibber,  and  Wilks,  Managers  of  Drury 

Lane,  September  13,  1725 114 

From  the  original;  full  size. 

Rich  certifies  "that  Mr.  Duplaisir  is  discharg'd  from  the  Theatre 
Royal  in  Lincoln's  Inn  Feilds."   See  No.  17. 

16.  Holograph  Letter  from  Humphrey  Moseley,  the 

Bookseller,  to  Sir  Henry  Herbert,  Master  of  the 
Revels,  August  30,  1660,  relating  to  Plays  and 

Theatres 122 

From  the  original  (reduced). 

The  date  "August  30.  60"  is  inserted  by  Herbert,  who  also  dockets 
the  letter:  "From  m''  Mosely  Concerninge  the  Players  &c.  Aug.  30- 
60."  Moseley  mentions  "M"'  Rhodes  of  the  Cock-Pitt  Playhouse"; 
also  "the  Gentlemen  Actors  of  the  Red  Bull";  also  "the  Whitefryers 
Playhouse,  &  Players."  The  letter  was  printed,  but  not  with  literal 
accuracy,  by  Malone  in  the  Variorum  Shakspere  of  1790, 1,  ii,  243-244, 
and  again  by  Boswell  in  the  Variorum  of  1821,  III,  249,  from  which 
Professor  Adams  reprints  it  in  The  Dramatic  Records  of  Sir  Henry  Her- 
bert, p.  90.  No  scholar  seems  to  have  seen  the  original  since  Malonc's 
time. 


xiv  LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

17.  South  View  of  the  Theatre   Royal   in   Portugal 

Street,  Lincoln's  Inn  Fields.    Now  [in  181 1]  the 

Salopian  China  Warehouse 132 

From  an  engraving  (8|  X  11 5)  published  by  Robert  Wil- 
kinson, October  7,  181 1  (Shepherd  del..  Wise  sc). 

This  theatre,  which  stood  on  the  north  side  of  Portugal  Street,  op- 
posite the  head  of  Cary  Street,  was  built  by  Christopher  Rich  on  the 
site  of  Betterton's  New  Theatre  in  Lincoln's  Inn  Fields  (opened  April 
30, 1695;  abandoned  in  1705),  and  was  opened  by  John  Rich,  his  son,  on 
December  18, 1714.  In  December,  1732,  Rich  removed  to  his  new  Co- 
vent  Garden  Theatre,  which  was  opened  on  the  7th.  The  Portugal 
Street  Theatre  was  utilized  for  opera  in  1733  and  1734,  for  drama  by 
GifFard's  company  (from  Goodman's  Fields)  in  1 736-1 737  and  by 
Giffard  again  in  1742-1743;  and  at  various  times  for  occasional  en- 
tertainments and  miscellaneous  purposes.  Later  in  the  century  it  was 
fitted  up  as  barracks.  Finally  it  became  a  china  warehouse  (Spode's 
and  afterwards  Copeland's).  It  was  purchased  in  1847  ^Y  ^^^  Royal 
College  of  Surgeons,  and  was  torn  down  in  1848  to  clear  a  site  for  an 
extension  to  the  Museum  of  the  College  (see  The  Illustrated  London 
News,  September  2,  1848,  XIII,  132;  Athenoeum,  September  2,  1848, 
pp.  883-884;  Heckethorn,  Lincoln's  Inn  Fields,  pp.  150  ff.). 

18.  The  New  Theatre  Royal,  Haymarket,  opened  July 

4, 1 821,  and  the  Little  Theatre  in  the  Hay  (partly 
demolished) 136 

From  an  engraving  (8f  X  ii|;   Schnebbelie  del.,  Dale 

sc.)  published  by  Robert  Wilkinson  in  1822. 

The  dismantled  building  at  the  left  of  the  plate  is  the  Little  Theatre 
of  Aaron  Hill,  Theophilus  Cibber,  Fielding,  Foote,  and  the  Colmans. 
It  was  constructed  by  John  Potter  in  1720,  being  remodelled  from  the 
King's  Head  Inn  (between  Little  Suffolk  Street  and  James  Street), 
and  was  enlarged  and  refitted  by  Foote  in  1767.  See  Potter's  petition 
to  Parliament,  April  11,  1735  {Commons'  Journals,  XXII,  456); 
Haslewood,  Gentleman's  Magazine,  March-May,  1822,  XCII,  ii,  201- 
204,  319-321,  406-408;  London  Magazine,  June,  1767,  XXVI,  268; 
London  Chronicle,  May  30-June  2,  1767,  p.  522;  Wilkinson's  Londina 
Illustrata,  note  to  Plate  186;  Foote's  Prelude  (William  Cooke,  M^»»- 
oirs  oj  Samuel  Foote,  1805,  III,  142  ff.);   Genest,  V,  138. 

19.  Newspaper  advertisement  (October  19,  1741)  of 

Garrick's  First  Appearance  at  the  Theatre  in 

Goodman's  Fields I40 

From  the  original  (slightly  reduced). 

20.  Drury  Lane  Theatre  on  Fire,  1 809 143 

From  a  contemporary  print  (55  X  8^). 

The  Theatre  Royal,  Drury  Lane,  was  opened  in  1663  and  burned 
down  in  1 672.  The  second  Drury  Lane,  on  the  same  site  (sec  No.  39.  i ), 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTPIATIONS  xv 

was  opened  in  1674,  several  times  altered  in  the  eighteenth  century, 
much  enlarged  in  1775,  abandoned  in  1791,  and  shortly  afterwards 
demolished.  The  third  Drury  Lane  was  opened  on  March  12,  1794, 
and  totally  destroyed  by  fire  on  the  night  of  February  24,  1809  (sec 
The  London  Chronicle  for  February  25,  27,  and  28,  1809,  CV,  197,  199, 
204;  The  Monthly  Mirror  for  March,  1 809,  XXVI,  1 82, 1 84-1 87).  Cf. 
No.  6. 

21.  Bill  of  September  ii,  1809,  announcing  that  "the 
New  Theatre  Royal,  Covent-Garden,  will  be 
opened  On  Monday  next,  September  18,  1809, 
With  the  Tragedy  of  Macbeth.  Macbeth,  Mr. 
Kemble,  Lady  Macbeth,  Mrs.  Siddons  ".  .  .  .  145 
From  the  original  (24!  X  15!). 

The  Proprietors  announce  an  advance  in  prices. 
The  first  Covent  Garden  Theatre  was  opened  on  December  7,  1732,  by 
John  Rich  with  his  company  from  Lincoln's  Inn  Fields  (see  No.  17). 
It  was  enlarged  and  almost  entirely  rebuilt  in  1792,  and  was  destroyed 
by  fire  on  September  20,  1808  (see  The  Monthly  Mirror  for  October 
and  December,  1808,  XXVI,  259-262,  386-388). 

11.  Caricature  of  the  0[ld].  P[rice].  Riots,  1809  .  .  .  147 
From  a  colored  print  of  the  time  (9I  X  14 1):  "Acting 
Magistrates  committing  themselves  being  their  first  ap- 
pearance on  this  stage  as  performed  at  the  National 
Theatre  Covent  Garden,  Sep*  18,  1809." 
See  The  Covent  Garden  Journal,  i8io,  I,  151;  Boaden,  Life  of  Kemble, 
II,  495- 

23.    The  Young  Roscius.    Master  Betty  Studying  his 

part 151 

From  a  colored  print  (17!  X  145)  published  by  G. 
Thompson,  January  8,  1805. 

In  the  corners  Betty  is  figured  in  four  of  his  leading  roles:  Hamlet, 
Selim  (in  Dr.  John  Brown's  Barbarossa),  Frederick  (in  Mrs.  Inchbald's 
Lovers'  Vows),  and  Nerval  (in  Home's  Douglas). 

i4f.  Treasury  Warrant  (June,  1683)  to  pay  "M"  Elia- 
nor  Gwyn"  £1250  as  a  Quarter's  Pension.  With 
her  Receipt  (August  6,  1683)  for  £250,  signed 

"EG" 170 

Two  documents,  from  the  originals  (reduced). 

25.    A  Command  Night  at  Drury  Lane,  February  24, 

[1737-8].   Playbill.   Benefit  of  Mrs.  Mary  Porter     182 
From  the  original  (8|  X  l\). 

"By  Command  of  THEIR  ROYAL  HIGHNESSES,  the  PRINCE 
and  PRINCESS  of  WALES."  Mrs.  Porter  as  Zara  in  The  Mourning 


xvi  LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

Bride  (see  No.  9).  "None  will  be  admitted  without  Printed  Tickets." 
"Servants  will  be  allowed  to  keep  Places  on  the  Stage,  Side-Boxes, 
and  the  Two  Corner  Front-Boxes  on  each  Side  the  Stage;  and  the 
Ladies  are  desir'd  to  send  them  by  Three  o'Clock.  To  begin  exactly  at 
Six  o'clock."  The  year,  "1737,"  is  added  in  ink. 

26.  Colley  Gibber 193 

From  an  engraving  (6f  X  45;    Gravelot  del.,  T.  Pris- 

cott  sc.)  published  by  C.  Dyer. 

27.  John  Rich  as  Harlequin  Dr.  Faustus  in  the  Panto- 

mime of  The  Necromancer,  1723 213 

From  a  contemporary  print  (8  X  5I). 

The  Necromancer  was  first  produced  on  December  20,  1723,  at  Lin- 
coln's Inn  Fields  (Genest,  III,  144). 

28.  The  Duke's  Theatre,  Dorset  Garden,  shortly  be- 

fore its  Demolition  in  1709.    View  of  the  Front 

from  the  River 217 

From  an  engraving,  6x8  (taken  from  a  contemporary 
drawing),  published  by  J.  Nichols  &  Co.,  July  i,  18 14. 

Opened  by  the  Duke  of  York's  company  (D'Avenant's),  under  Bet- 
terton's  management,  on  November  9,  1671  (Downes,  p.  31),  and  oc- 
cupied by  them  until  their  union  with  the  King's  company  (of  Drury 
Lane)  in  1682,  after  which  it  was  used  occasionally  for  plays  and  other 
exhibitions  until  its  demolition  in  1709.  It  faced  the  Thames  and 
stood  a  little  to  the  eastward  of  Dorset  Stairs  (shown  in  the  view).  The 
site  is  now  covered  by  the  City  of  London  School.  For  an  admission 
check  see  No.  34.   Cf.  Frontispiece. 

29.  "Buy  a  Bill  of  the  Flay."   A  Drury  Lane  Orange 

Girl 221 

From  a  colored  print  (full  size)  in  Modern  London  pub- 
lished by  Richard  Phillips  in  1804. 

30.  Contending  for  a  Seat 229 

From  a  colored  print  (105  X  8f)  in  Theatrical  Pleasures^ 
1830,  drawn  and  engraved  by  Theodore  Lane. 

31.  Caricature  of  Farinelli,  Cuzzoni,  and  Heidegger, 

with  verses 243 

From  an  etching  of  1734-37  (12^  X  8|). 

This  caricature,  according  to  Horace  Walpole,  was  designed  by  Dor- 
othy, last  Countess  of  Burlington  (letter  to  John  Nichols,  October  31, 
1781,  Letters,  ed.  Toynbee,  XII,  80),  and  is  said  to  have  been  etched 
by  Joseph  Goupy.  The  copy  here  reproduced  is  thought  to  have  be- 
longed to  Walpole.   The  names  of  the  three  persons  and  the  ascrip- 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS  xvii 

tion  to  the  Countess  have  been  added  in  ink  and  seem  to  be  in  Wal- 
pole's  hand. 

Farineili  (as  Arbaces)  and  Cuzzoni  (as  Mandane)  are  represented  as 
singing  in  the  opera  of  Artaserse  (by  Metastasio),  in  which  Farineili 
made  his  bow  to  the  British  public  on  October  29,  1734,  at  the  Hay- 
market  Opera  House,  just  relinquished  by  Handel  and  Heidegger. 
Farineili  left  England  in  June,  1737. 

In  the  verses  below  the  caricature  Heidegger,  addressing  Farineili  and 
Cuzzoni,  informs  them  that  they  are  no  longer  in  favor.  This  suggests 
some  date  in  the  season  of  1736-37,  which  came  to  a  disastrous  end  in 
the  summer  of  1737.  See  John  Nichols,  Biographical  Anecdotes  of 
William  Hogarth,  3d  ed.,  1785,  pp.  439-440;  Burney,  General  History 
oj Music,  IV,  378  fF.,  4I4;  John  Ireland,  Hogarth  Illustrated,  1798,  III, 
365;  Thomas  Wright,  England  under  the  House  of  Hanover,  1 848, 1,  98- 
loi;  British  Museum,  Catalogue  of  Prints,  Division  I,  Vol.  Ill,  pp.  9- 
10,  No.  2022. 

32.    Strolling  Player  Distributing  Playbills  by  Beat  of 

Drum 259 

From  a  colored  print  of  the  eighteenth  century  (5I  X  45). 

23.  Playbill,  Drury  Lane,  May  i8,  [1703]:  The  Relapse 
by  Vanbrugh;  with  singing,  dancing,  etc.  {cf.  p. 
15)      262 

From  the  original  (6|  X  4f ),  one  of  the  earliest  playbills 

known. 

34.  Admission  Checks 264 

From  an  engraving  published  by  Robert  Wilkinson  in 

1822  and  included  as  Plate  206  in  his  Londina  Illustrata. 

1.  Red  Bull;  Upper  Gallery:  copper. 

2.  Duke's  Theatre,  Dorset  Garden;  Upper  Gallery, 
1671:  yellow  metal. 

3.  New  Theatre,  Goodman's  Fields;  Pit:  copper. 

This  check  gives  the  only  known  contemporary  view  of  Henry  Gif- 
fard's  theatre,  at  which  Garrick  made  his  first  appearance  in  London 
on  October  19,  174I   (see  No.  19).    It  was  erected  in  Great  AylifFe 
Street  (now  Great  Aylie  Street)  in  1732  on  the  site  of  Thomas  Odell's 
theatre  of  1729. 

4.  Covent  Garden:  Box:  Check  bearing  a  profile  of 
the  Duke  of  Cumberland,  probably  struck  im- 
mediately after  the  collapse  of  the  Jacobite  Re- 
bellion of  1745:  copper. 

35.  Admission  Checks 266 

From  the  originals  (full  size). 

1.  Bone  check:    Theatre  Royal,  Haymarket,   1804. 

2.  Bone  check:    Theatre  Royal,  Haymarket,   181 1. 


xviii  LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

26.    Benefit  Tickets 268 

From  the  originals  (slightly  reduced). 
I.  Mr.  Edwin's  Night.     Benefit  ticket. 

This  represents  John  Edwin  (1749-1790)  as  Lingo  in  O'KeefFe's  farce 
or  "comic  opera"  of  T/ie  Agreeable  Surprise,  a  part  which  he  created 
at  the  Little  Theatre  in  the  Haymarket  on  September  3,  1781.  See 
O'Keeffe,  Recollections,  II,  3  fF.;  Walpole,  Letters,  ed.  Toynbee,  XII, 
307;   XIII,  195,  272-273.    For  other  benefit  tickets  see  Nos.  7,  12. 

1.  Royalty  Theatre,  Goodman's  Fields.    Benefit  of 
William  Ronaldson,  Carpenter,  October  12,  1797. 
1>1°  54  and  W  R  are  written  in.  There  is  a  seal  in  the  upper  left-hand 
corner. 

37.  Tickets 272 

From  the  originals. 

I.  Holograph  order:    "One  to  the  Pit  Sep*  the  g*'* 

1809  Sarah  Siddons."    Covent  Garden.     Full  size. 
a.  Box  ticket,  Drury  Lane,  October  21,  1747:    The 
Alchymist;  Garrick  as  Abel  Drugger. 
Printed  in  red.   Slightly  reduced. 

38.  "The  True  Effiges  of  the  Four  Indian  Kings  taken 

from  the  Original  Paintings  done  by  Mr.  Varelst."    279 
From  a  contemporary  colored  print  (13  X  io|). 

See  "The  Epilogue  To  be  Spoken  Before  the  Four  Indian  Kings,  At  the 
Queen's  Theatre  in  the  Hay-Market,  this  present  Monday,  being  the 
24th  of  April,"  1710,  at  William  Bowen's  benefit  —  a  single  leaf, 
printed  on  both  sides  (Harvard  Theatre  Collection).  Cf.  The  Spec- 
tator, No.  50.  "Mr.  Varelst"  is  Simon  Verelst,  the  celebrated  flower 
painter. 

39.  I.  Jo  Hayns  Speaking  an  Epilogue  from  the  Back 

of  an  Ass  at  Drury  Lane  in  1697 283 

From  a  copperplate  (5I  X  2|)  in  The  Second  Volume  of 
the  JVorks  of  Mr.  Tho.  Brown ,  1719. 

This  was  the  Epilogue  to  Thomas  Scot's  tragedy,  The  Unhappy  Kind- 
ness, or  yf  Fruitless  Revenge  (.Drury  Lane,  i6gy).  In  the  quarto  edition 
of  the  play  (1697)  the  title  is:  "The  EPILOGUE  written,  and  spoke 
by  Mr.  Haynes,  in  the  Habit  of  a  Horse  Officer,  mounted  on  an  Ass." 
The  plate  shows  the  interior  of  the  second  Drury  Lane  Theatre,  opened 
in  1674,  before  the  eighteenth-century  alterations.    See  No.  20. 

2.  Jo  Hayns's  Mountebank  Speech      283 

From  a  copperplate  (4I  X  2|)  in  The  Fifth  Volume  of 
the  fVorks  of  Mr.  Thomas  Brown,  1721. 


Shakspere  to  Sheridan 


Chapter  I 


OLD  LAMPS  AND  NEW 

THACKERAY  is  never  more  interesting,  perhaps,  than 
when  the  pensive  mood  is  upon  him — "on  the  catas- 
trophe and  heel  of  pastime,  when  it  is  out."  Such  a  mood 
leads  him,  in  a  certain  chapter  of  The  Virginians,  to  pass 
in  review  the  transitory  glories  of  the  stage.  "Poor  neg- 
lected Muse  of  our  bygone  theatre!  She  pipes  for  us  and 
we  will  not  dance,  she  tears  her  hair,  and  we  will  not 
weep.  And  the  immortals  of  our  time  —  how  soon  shall 
they  be  dead  and  buried,  think  you?  How  many  will 
survive?  How  long  shall  it  be  ere  Nox  et  Domus  Plu- 
tonia  shall  overtake  them?"  One  wonders  —  and  then 
decides  cheerfully  enough  that  some  will  surely  live.  For 
among  those  who  write  for  the  theatre  and  those  who  act 
for  it,  —  indeed,  even  among  those  who  manage  it, — 
there  are  always  a  few  who  were  not  born  to  die.  If  it  be 
true  that  the  glory  has  indeed  departed,  that  the  theatre 
no  longer  holds  the  mirror  up  to  nature,  or,  at  best, 
merely  flashes  there  an  image  of  unlovely  commercial- 
ism, so  much  the  more  reason  for  going  back  to  happier 
times!  But  to  do  so  is  to  lose  one's  pessimism.  For  one 
cannot  study  the  players,  the  playwrights,  the  managers, 
and  the  playgoers  of  old  without  a  growing  conviction 
that  the  web  of  theatrical  life  is  still  of  the  same  mingled 
yarn  that  gave  it  color  and  variety  in  Shakspere's  time 
and  Garrick's.  Nor  need  we  be  too  much  preoccupied 
with  disentangling  the  mixture  of  good  and  evil.  The 
theatre  to-day  —  whatever  its  faults  —  has  lost  none  of 
its  fascination.  It  is  true,  perhaps,  that  the  literary 
drama  pure  and  simple  has  been  so  frequently  and  so 


4  SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

thoroughly  studied  as  to  have  lost  something  of  its  orig- 
inal brightness  as  a  subject  for  the  endless  making  of 
books,  but  it  is  certainly  as  true  that  the  drama,  and 
good  books  on  the  drama,  are  now  and  always  a  trium- 
phant vindication  of  the  glory  of  the  human  spirit.  Of 
the  theatre  itself,  somehow,  we  hear  less.  Few  there  are 
who  do  not  feel  the  glamour  of  the  footlights  and  of  the 
lights  and  shadows  in  the  wings,  the  fascination  of  the 
great  world  behind  the  curtain;  but  with  this  fabled 
glamour  most  of  us  remain  content.  The/^r/j",  often  far 
more  interesting  than  the  fancies,  have  not  often  found 
their  way  into  print. 

When  a  new  playwright  appears  upon  the  boards  with 
a  romantic  allegory,  a  French  farce,  a  domestic  tragedy, 
or  a  sentimental  comedy,  we  are  quick  to  scent  an  influ- 
ence (Elizabethan  or  Restoration  or  Georgian,  Mid- 
Victorian  or  Ibsenesque  or  Shavian),  and  it  does  not  take 
us  long  to  place  him  snugly  in  his  proper  niche  or  cate- 
gory. But  our  knowledge  of  the  past  does  not  serve  us 
quite  so  well  when  we  come  to  notice  other  phenomena 
of  the  living  stage.  For  example,  we  hear  much  in  these 
latter  days  of  great  producing  managers,  of  theatrical 
capitalists  and  theatre  trusts,  of  actors'  unions,  actors' 
strikes.  But  how  many  are  there  who  know  how  deeply 
rooted  in  the  traditions  and  practices  of  the  past  are 
these  apparently  strange  and  portentous  appearances? 
We  think  them  new  and  strikingly  modern,  though  as  a 
matter  of  fact  they  are  as  old  as  time  —  theatrically 
speaking.  To  deal  with  their  youthful  days,  to  go  back 
from  modern  instances  to  origins  and  first  appearances  — 
this,  I  believe,  is  not  to  indulge  in  mere  dry-as-dust 
antiquarian  ism.  To  those  who  love  the  theatre  these 
things  abound  in  human  interest.  Who  does  not  read 
gleefully  when  a  clever  press  agent  spins  a  yarn,  and 
spins  it  well  —  or,  if  he  be  a  good  fellow  as  well  as  a 
clever  one,  who  would  disdain  to  accept  if  he  offered  a 


OLD  LAMPS  AND  NEW  5 

pass  for  his  play?  Your  busy  man  of  affairs  may  not  take 
time  to  read  the  column  of  greenroom  gossip  with  which 
his  newspaper  supplies  him  regularly  so  many  times  a 
week,  but  certain  members  of  his  family  rarely  fail  to  be 
entertained  by  the  report  of  the  latest  union  between  the 
stage  and  the  peerage  —  or  the  plutocracy.  Indeed  he 
himself  is  sometimes  impressed  by  other  items  —  the  re- 
port, let  us  say,  of  a  sale  or  lease  of  theatrical  property 
running  into  the  hundreds  of  thousands,  or  beyond.  And 
I  can  conceive  of  his  wondering  how  the  manager  of  the 
legitimate  can  stand  the  competition  of  the  movies;  how 
much  he  pays  his  players  to  keep  them  from  deserting  in  a 
body  to  the  golden  and  lucrative  West,  the  El  Dorado  of 
the  silent  drama;  or  how  much  he  must  put  into  his  next 
great  show  to  outvie  the  picturized  splendor  of  the  last 
great  six-reel  feature. 

How  strikingly  history  has  repeated  itself  in  some  of 
these  matters  any  one  may  observe  who  will  have  suffi- 
cient patience  to  read  but  to  the  end  of  the  first  chapter  of 
this  book.  Thereafter,  if  he  proceed,  he  will  find  material 
not  only  upon  famous  press  agents  of  old,  or  the  dead- 
heads and  the  theatrical  rivalries  of  the  past,  but  upon  the 
whole  range  and  scope  of  things  that  have  to  do  with  the 
theatre  in  general,  and  with  theatrical  management  in 
the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries  in  particular. 
And  he  will  find,  I  think,  a  surprising  continuity  of  tradi- 
tion and  method  extending  from  Shakspere's  theatre  to 
our  own.  To  take  but  one  case  in  point,  —  he  will  ob- 
serve that  marriages  between  players  and  the  nobility 
were  but  one  of  many  important  bonds  between  the  the- 
ati^e  and  the  court  from  Shakspere's  time  through  Sheri- 
dan's and  later.  Court  support  and  court  control  of  the 
theatre  was  indeed  of  such  far-reaching  consequence  that 
we  must  deal  with  it  at  length.  Playhouse  finance  and 
administration;  the  pay  and  the  general  status  of  play- 
wrights and  players;  the  star  system;  general  costs  and 


6  SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

problems  of  production,  of  costumes,  scenery,  and  proper- 
ties; the  personal  equation  as  it  finds  expression  in  the 
history  of  the  great  players  and  managers;  and,  finally, 
the  audiences,  their  riots  and  their  generous  deeds  — 
such  are  the  topics  here  to  be  discussed.  These  matters 
cannot  be  safely  ignored,  even  by  those  who  are  interested 
in  the  theatre  only  because  it  gives  a  local  habitation  to 
the  literary  drama.  The  history  of  the  drama  cannot  be 
genuinely  understood  without  the  history  of  the  theatre, 
though  the  former  may  be  for  all  time  and  the  latter  but 
of  an  idle  day  or  generation.  Certain  it  is  that  theatrical 
conditions,  and  the  tastes  and  predilections  of  audiences, 
have  determined  the  course  of  dramatic  history  on  more 
than  one  occasion.  Even  if  it  be  urged  that  the  process  is, 
or  ought  to  be,  the  other  way  about,  there  is  an  old  axiom 
to  be  remembered:  action  and  reaction  are  constant — and 
each  is  worthy  of  observation. 

"Every  theatrical  work,"  says  Genest,^  "should  (if 
possible)  be  written  according  to  the  seasons."  To  this 
dictum  one  may  retort  that  a  chronological  arrangement 
too  often  tends  to  obscure  more  organic  relationships. 
For  our  purposes,  at  all  events,  it  will  not  do.  Instead,  we 
shall  examine  one  by  one  the  chief  elements  of  our  sub- 
ject —  the  playwright's  share  in  the  scheme  of  things,  the 
player's,  the  manager's,  and  so  on  till  the  curtain  drops. 

To  begin  with,  let  us  look  at  a  set  of  circumstances  that 
illustrates  a  point  and  a  promise  made  earlier  in  this  in- 
troduction. It  has  to  do  with  the  causal  relations  between 
theatrical  conditions  (as  determined  by  a  complex  of 
social,  political  and  aesthetic  impulses  of  a  given  time)  and 
the  resultant  drama.  Incidentally  it  will  demonstrate  a 
truth  that  few,  perhaps,  would  be  inclined  to  question,  — 
namely,  that  the  managers  of  to-day  are  not  the  first  who 
have  spent  money  lavishly  in  the  effort  to  outdistance 
competitors. 

1  Some  Account  oj  the  English  Stage,  VI,  423. 


OLD  LAMPS  AND  NEW  7 

One  of  the  most  obvious  indications  of  the  decay  of  the 
drama  in  the  decades  just  preceding  the  closing  of  the 
theatres  by  the  Puritans  in  1642,  was  the  growing  fond- 
ness of  the  public  for  strong  effects,  —  for  the  strange,  the 
horrible,  the  melodramatic,  and  the  spectacular.  The 
jaded  palate  of  the  groundlings  demanded  highly  spiced 
food,  and  the  dramatists  gave  them  what  they  wanted. 
A  hectic  craving  for  high  passions  torn  to  tatters  in  ter- 
rific outbreaks  of  crime  or  outrage;  an  insistence  upon 
quick  and  clever  turns  of  situation  at  the  expense,  often, 
of  more  vital  things;  at  best  a  delight  in  the  far-away  un- 
realities of  the  dramatic  romance,  at  worst  a  more  and 
more  pronounced  licentiousness  of  tone  and  viciousness  of 
outlook, —  the  whole  strangely  interfused  with  flashes  of 
noble  poetry:  —  such  was  the  demand  and  such  the  sup- 
ply shortly  after  Shakspere's  death,  when  Beaumont  and 
Fletcher  and  Marston  and  Webster  and  their  group  held 
the  stage.  Meanwhile,  a  growing  splendor  and  lavish  ex- 
travagance distinguished  the  productions  at  Court.  The 
great  masque  given  to  Charles  I  and  his  queen  by  the 
loyal  gentlemen  of  the  Inns  of  Court  in  1633,  cost  £21,000, 
a  sum  representing  more  than  ten  times  its  present  pur- 
chasing power.  By  this  gorgeous  tribute  they  meant  to 
show  their  abhorrence  of  Prynne's  courageous  and  sensa- 
tional attack  upon  the  frivolity  and  extravagance  of  the 
court  (in  his  Histrio-Mastix).  Other  gentlemen,  however, 
financed  expensive  court  entertainments  primarily  for  the 
love  of  the  thing.  And  the  theatres,  long  before  the  close 
of  the  period,  had  followed  suit.  Gaudy  and  splendid 
costumes  were  the  delight  of  the  Elizabethans  in  their 
best  days,  and  large  sums  were  expended  upon  them  in 
Shakspere's  time.  But  a  little  later  the  plays  embodied, 
more  and  more,  masques  and  disguisings,  shows  and  spec- 
tacles. Hence  the  popularity  of  Heywood's  Ages,  of  his 
masque  called  Love's  Mistress,  and  of  the  spectacular 
dramatic  romances  and  tragedies  already  referred  to. 


8  SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

Richard  Brome,  in  the  prologue  to  The  Antipodes  (acted 
1638),  lamented  the  new  order  of  things,  and  regretfully 
noted  that  a  part  of  the  public  had  turned  from  "the  old 
way  of  Playes,"  being  content 

Only  to  run  to  those,  that  carry  state 

In  Scene  magnificent  and  language  high; 

And  Clothes  worth  all  the  rest,  except  the  Action, 

And  such  are  only  good  those  Leaders  cry. 

But  the  new  mode  had  come  to  stay,  for  the  Restoration 
intensified  the  earlier  tendency.  Even  though  dramatic 
entertainments  of  one  kind  or  another  were  not  altogether 
unknown  during  the  Commonwealth,  it  is  certain  that 
they  were  relatively  few  and  far  between.  A  reaction 
against  sombre  Puritanism  and  suppression  was  inev- 
itable, and  so  the  Restoration  theatre  became  from  the 
outset  the  home  of  glittering  show  and  extravagant  spec- 
tacle. D'Avenant,  successful  playwright  and  laureate  of 
the  old  regime,  had  kept  his  eyes  open  while  he  was  in 
France,  and  had  introduced  the  "new  Art  Prospective  in 
Scenes"  to  London  some  years  before  General  Monk  pro- 
claimed the  restoration  of  the  Merry  Monarch.^  When 
that  time  came,  the  new  playwrights  and  managers  did 
not  fail  to  remember  the  scenic  and  operatic  possibilities 
of  the  dramatic  romance  of  pre-Restoration  days.  Dry- 
den,  Howard,  Crowne,  and  a  host  of  other  dramatists 
hastened  (in  Colley  Gibber's  phrase)  to  outdo  the  usual 
outdoing  of  Beaumont  and  Fletcher  and  Heywood  — 
and  the  managers,  D'Avenant  and  Killigrew,  gladly  pro- 
duced the  new  monstrosity  —  the  heroic  drama. 

But  neither  the  heroic  plays  with  all  their  fine  show  and 
splendid  rant,  nor  yet  the  cleverest  and  merriest  innuen- 
does of  the  brilliant  new  Restoration  comedy  of  manners, 
were  able  to  hold  their  own  against  the  competition  of  en- 
tertainments even  less  akin  to  the  old  drama.    Many 

*  His  Siege  oj  Rhodes  was  first  presented  in  1656. 


OLD  LAMPS  AND  NEW  9 

causes  combined  to  make  the  Restoration  theatres  far  less 
attractive  to  the  general  public  than  those  of  the  preced- 
ing era  had  been.  In  Shakspere's  day,  the  Globe  and  the 
Blackfriars,  the  Fortune,  the  Swan,  the  Whitefriars,  and 
the  Red  Bull  ^  —  often  as  many  as  half-a-dozen  houses  at 
the  same  time  —  enjoyed  a  consistent  prosperity.  After 
the  Restoration  two  theatres  authorized  by  royal  patent, 
Killigrew's  and  D'Avenant's,  divided  between  them  a 
monopoly  of  the  stage,  and  yet  they  frequently  had  but 
slender  audiences.  To  seek  the  reasons  at  this  point 
would  take  us  too  far  afield.  We  shall  meet  them  pres- 
ently, together  with  ample  contemporary  evidence  — 
laments  in  prologues  and  epilogues,  managers'  pleas  to 
audiences,  and  the  like  —  to  attest  the  lack  of  patronage. 
For  the  moment  the  point  is  rather  to  observe  how  the 
managers  sought  to  woo  the  fickle  public. 

They  did  their  best  —  by  providing  novelty  upon 
novelty:  music  and  dancers,  pantomimes  (spectacular 
silent  drama  ^^r  excellence)^  tricksters  and  jugglers,  and 
even  performing  animals.  These  entertainments  and  en- 
tertainers, at  first  drawn  upon  to  revive  the  flagging  in- 
terest of  the  public,  soon  established  themselves  and 
began  to  threaten  the  very  existence  of  the  legitimate 
drama.  The  popularity  of  Italian  opera  was  another  trial 
to  the  players,  and  the  vogue  of  Italian  singers  and  French 
dancers  soon  came  to  be  looked  upon  as  an  insult  to  Eng- 
lish actors,  and  a  danger  to  the  theatre.  The  writers  of  the 
time,  accordingly,  protested  in  no  uncertain  tones.  Be- 
fore the  close  of  the  seventeenth  century,  as  Curll's  His- 
tory of  the  Stage  (1741)  has  it,  "the  English  Theatre  was 
not  only  pestered  with  Tumblers  and  Rope-Dancers  from 
France,  but  likewise  Dancing-Masters  and  Dancing- 
Dogs;  Shoals  of  Italian  Squallers  were  daily  imported  and 

^  The  Theatre,  the  Curtain,  the  Rose,  the  Bear  Garden,  the  Hope,  St. 
Paul's,  the  Cockpit  (or  Phoenix),  and  the  Salisbury  Court  complete  the  list  of 
Elizabethan  theatres.  Of  course,  not  all  of  these  were  in  use  at  any  one  time. 
See  Adams,  Shakespearean  Playhouses,  for  details. 


lo  SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

the  Drury-Lane  Company  almost  broke."  ^  And  Downes, 
the  prompter  at  the  other  house,  where  D'Avenant's 
company  was  installed,  gives  similar  testimony.  "Mr. 
Betterton,"  D'Avenant's  star  performer  and  acting  man- 
ager, "  to  gratify  the  desires  and  Fancies  of  the  Nobility 
and  Gentry,  procur'd  from  Abroad  the  best  Dance[r]s 
and  Singers;  .  .  .  who  being  Exorbitantly  Expensive, 
produc'd  small  Profit  to  him  and  his  Company,  but  vast 
Gain  to  themselves."  A  single  one  of  these  visitors,  ac- 
cording to  Downes,  reaped  a  harvest  of  10,000  guineas!  2 
In  the  epilogue  to  Farquhar's  Love  and  a  Bottle  (1698), 
recited  with  great  eclat  by  the  famous  Jo  Hayns  (perhaps 
the  best  epiloguist  of  his  time),  there  is  confirmatory  evi- 
dence. After  roundly  berating  the  public  for  its  neglect, 
Jo  adds  that  the  management,  for  its  part,  has  done  its 
best: 

An  Italian  now  we've  got  of  mighty  Fame, 

Don  Sigismondi  Fideli  —  There's  Musick  in  his  Name! 

His  Voice  is  like  the  music  of  the  spheres: 

It  should  be  Heav'nly  —  for  the  Price  it  bears! 

He's  a  handsome  Fellow  too,  looks  brisk  and  trim, 

If  he  don't  take  you,  then  the  Devil  take  him  — 

a  sentiment  which  is  not  incomprehensible  in  view  of  the 
fact  that  Don  Fideli  is  said  to  have  received  £20  a  night, 
—  that  is  to  say,  three  or  four  times  as  much  as  Betterton 
and  other  leading  players  earned  in  a  week.^  Authorities 
diflfer,  however,  and  some  tell  us  that  these  high-priced 
foreign  attractions  netted  a  profit  to  the  managers.  Gil- 
don  says  so  in  his  Comparison  between  the  Stages  (1702), 
and  flatly  contradicts  Downes,  though  he  too  expresses  a 
cordial  dislike  for  the  foreigners.  "It  has  always  been  the 
Jest  of  all  the  Men  of  Sense  about  Town;  not  that  the 

*  P.  133.  Mrs.  Clive,  the  famous  actress  and  friend  of  Horace  Walpole 
and  Garrick,  denounced  the  invaders  as  "a  set  of  Italian  squalling  devils  who 
come  over  to  England  to  get  our  bread  from  us;  and  I  say  curse  them  all  " 
(Tate  Wilkinson,  Memoirs,  II,  29). 

*  Roscius  Anglicanus,  1708,  p.  46.  ^  See  below,  Chap.  III. 


OLD  LAMPS  AND  NEW  ii 

Fellows  perform'd  ill,  for  in  their  way  they  did  admirably; 
but  that  the  Stage  that  had  kept  its  purity  a  hundred 
Years  (at  least  from  this  Debauchery)  shou'd  now  be 
prostituted  to  Vagabonds,  to  Caperers,  Eunuchs,  Fidlers, 
Tumblers  and  Gipsies  .  .  .  And  yet  .  .  .  these  Rascals 
brought  the  greatest  Houses  that  ever  were  known: 
'Sdeath,  I  am  scandaliz'd  ...  I  am  asham'd  to  own  my 
self  of  a  Country  where  the  Spirit  of  Poetry  is  dwindled 
into  vile  Farce  and  Foppery."  ^ 

The  spirit  of  poetry,  moreover,  had  to  contend  against 
another  lively  competitor  —  the  irrepressible  Punchi- 
nello. The  rivalry  of  the  puppet-shows,  particularly  in  the 
provinces,  had  been  seriously  felt  by  the  players  even 
in  Shakspere's  time,  and  the  town  records  of  the  first 
decades  of  the  seventeenth  century  show  that  certain 
municipalities  welcomed  and  paid  the  exhibitors  of  these 
"Italian  motions  " —  the  movies  of  their  time — more  liber- 
ally than  they  did  "  the  great  players"  who  came  a-visit- 
ing  from  London. ^  Shakspere  mentions  the  puppets 
again  and  again;  ^  Jonson  pays  his  sincere  respects  to 
them  in  Bartholomew  Fair  *  and  y4  Tale  of  a  Tub^^  and 
Milton  saw  "Adam  as  he  is  in  the  motions"  ^  before  he 
put  him  into  Paradise  Lost.  The  great  Betterton  was 
equally  catholic  in  his  tastes  and  did  riot  scorn  to  take  a 
humble  friend  from  the  country  to  Crawley's  puppet 
show  at  Bartholomew  Fair,  though  in  truth  he  was  a  little 
affronted  when  Crawley  refused  to  charge  him  for  admis- 
sion, because  "we  never  take  Money  of  one  another!"  ^ 

1  Pp.  46-48. 

^  For  details  see  the  writer's  articles  in  Modern  Philology,  XVII,  498- 
499  (January,  1920),  and  the  London  Times,  Literary  Supplement,  February 
26,  1920. 

^  Cf.  W.  J.  Lawrence,  London  Times,  Literary  Supplement,  January  29, 
1920. 

*  Act  V. 

*  Areopagitica. 

^  Tony  Aston's  Brief  Supplement  to  Cibber  in  Lowe's  edition  of  the 
Apology,  II,  301-302. 


12  SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

D'Avenant  and  Wycherley  both  allude  to  the  motions,* 
while  Steele,  in  the  Taller  of  July  23,  1709,  informed  his 
readers  that  "plays  performed  by  puppets  are  permitted 
in  our  universities,  and  that  sort  of  drama  is  not  wholly 
thought  unworthy  the  critique  of  learned  heads."  And 
the  puppets  did  not  cease  dallying  for  a  long  time  to  come. 
James  Ralph,  the  theatrical  colleague  of  Henry  Fielding, 
may  or  may  not  have  been  a  learned  critic.  He  was,  at  all 
events,  an  enthusiast,  and  in  his  Taste  of  the  Town  (1731),^ 
he  writes  of  the  puppets  with  pleasant  animation: 

I  confess,  I  cannot  view  a  well-executed  Puppet-Shew, 
without  extravagant  Emotions  of  Pleasure:  To  see  our  Ar- 
tists, like  so  many  Prometheus's,  animate  a  Bit  of  Wood,  and 
give  Life,  Speech  and  Motion,  perhaps,  to  what  was  the  Leg 
of  a  Joint-Stool,  strikes  one  with  a  pleasing  Surprize,  and  pre- 
possesses me  wonderfully  in  Favour  of  these  little  wooden 
Actors,  and  their  Primum-mobile. 

These  portable  Stages  are  of  infinite  Advantage  to  most 
Country  Towns,  where  Play-houses  cannot  be  maintain'd; 
and,  in  my  Mind,  superior  to  any  Company  of  Strolers:  The 
Amusement  is  innocent  and  instructive,  the  Expence  is  mod- 
erate, and  the  whole  Equipage  easily  carry'd  about;  as  I  have 
seen  some  Couples  of  Kings  and  Queens,  with  a  suitable  Ret- 
inue of  Courtiers  and  Guards,  very  well  accommodated  in  a 
single  Band-box,  with  Room  for  Punch  and  his  Family,  in  the 
same  Machine.  The  Plans  of  their  little  Pieces  do  not  barely 
aim  at  Morality,  but  enforce  even  Religion:  And,  it  is  impos- 
sible to  view  their  Representations  of  Bateman's  Ghost, 
Doctor  Faustus's  Death,  or  Mother  Shipton's  Tragical  End, 
but  that  the  bravest  Body  alive  must  be  terribly  afraid  of 
going  to  the  D — 1. 

Fielding  himself,  in  Tom  Jones ^  paid  tribute  to  the  "little 
wooden  actors,"  ^  and  his  disciple  Thackeray  makes  bold, 

1  Love  and  Honour  (pr.  1649),  '^>  ^>  4^>  ^^^  Plain  Dealer  (pr,  1677),  iii,  i. 
*  Pp.  228-229. 

'  Cf.  a  note  of  Mr.  G.  Hamilton's,  London  Times,  Literary  Supplement, 
March  11,  1920.   See  also  Fielding,  The  Author's  Farce^  ^12Py  act  iii. 


>sm 


John  Harris'^  BOOTH, 

in  Baithu'lomew-Fair  htivecn  the  Hofpitai- 
gate  ^H^Duck-laiie-«id,  mstiksRe^-daticers,' 
ii  to  he  /fee. 

THc  Coiirt  of  Kin^  Htnry  the  ^eeottd  -,  And  the  Deith  ^v-^^^  ^  iw 
ot  Fii'r  Rofamirul .-    With  the  merry  Kumr-'urs  of 
PuxcbUcl/o,2.nd  the Ux^aTtir^-Wkchcs.   ' As  il(o  the  f.i-    ^\>\n 
mousHin:oryof&«?.  and  Frier  fijrcff.-  \Vitfit^emcrrv\  Y\m' 
^  Ccnceits  of  their  Uio.  Milis.'   Aad  the  Brazen  fpeak-  \  \\  I 
■//  "'g.n^/"^'  wherein  is  rep  cituced  thxC  manner  how  ,  \\M  v 
ii  /  ^^^ Kingdom  wasto  havebecn x-s-xdid in  mihSrafs,    K  llj/'/iV^' 
Acud h  tigun: ai !r.r^: ;; Cii/i, .-,-.  to^j j,f«,-!i  ii^'  »  |!l /|//^ 

V  i)  the  Brazen  Spe_a  king  Hcao  ••?  tt;  ,  Jj  M'ly^^m^ 


OLD  LAMPS  AND  NEW  13 

in  The  Virginians,  to  invent  a  delightful  addition  to  Hor- 
ace Walpole's  letters,  in  the  course  of  which  that  gentle- 
man says  his  say  concerning  the  motions.  "I  do  not  love 
a  puppet-show,"  he  writes,  "but  I  love  to  treat  children 
to  one,  Miss  Conway!  I  present  your  ladyship  with  my 
compliments  and  hope  we  shall  go  and  see  the  dolls  to- 
gether." Perhaps  Walpole  and  Miss  Conway  did  not  go, 
but  other  famous  people  did.  The  great  Mrs.  Delany  did, 
for  example,  in  or  about  the  year  171 1,  when  she  was  little 
Mary  Granville,  and  later  she  records  in  her  Autobiog- 
raphy ^  how  she  saw  "Powell's  famous  puppet-show," 
which  was  then  busily  burlesquing  the  Italian  opera.  Sir 
Bevil  Granville,  Vice  Chamberlain  Cooke,  and  other  dis- 
tinguished people  were  there  to  enjoy  the  fun,  and  Mrs. 
Delany  recalls  the  scene  with  pleasure.  "My  Lord  Bol- 
ingbroke,"  she  writes,  "was  of  the  party,  and  made  me  sit 
upon  his  lap  to  see  it."  O'Keeffe,  the  Irish  playwright, 
likewise  took  keen  delight  in  the  puppets  before  he  came 
to  pull  the  strings  on  his  own  account,-  and  when,  by 
1773,  they  threatened  to  lose  some  of  their  pristine  glory, 
Foote  came  to  the  rescue  and  delighted  the  town  —  or 
such  a  part  of  it  as  managed  to  crowd  into  the  Little  Hay- 
market  —  by  his  Piety  in  Pattens,  an  essay  in  "  the  pure, 
the  primitive  Puppet-Shew." ^  In  short,  the  man  who 
first  announced  that  "  there's  nothing  lasting  but  the  pup- 
pet-show," did  not  exaggerate  so  much  as  one  might 
think,  and  it  would  be  easy  to  heap  up  allusion  and  anec- 
dote down  to  the  present  time  —  and  beyond  all  reason. 
The  point  here  is  that  the  puppets  of  old,  like  the  movies 
of  to-day,  made  sharp  competition  for  the  legitimate 
drama.  Colley  Cibber  notes  in  his  Apology  (1639)  how 
they  troubled  the  two  patent  theatres  in  early  Restora- 
tion times.  "A  famous  Puppet-shew  in  Salisbury  Change 

*  Ed.  Lady  Llanover,  I,  i6.   Cf.  Spectator,  Nos.  5,  14,  31. 
2  Recollections,  I,  165-166. 

*  See  W.  C.  Oulton,  History  oj  the  Theatres,  1796,  I,  14  ff. 


14  SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

.  .  .,"  he  writes,  "so  far  distrest  these  two  celebrated 
Companies  that  they  were  reduced  to  petition  the  King 
for  ReHef  against  it."  ^ 

Before  the  first  decade  of  the  eighteenth  century  came 
to  a  close,  the  Italian  opera  as  such  had  established  itself 
at  the  Haymarket  Theatre.  Toward  the  enemy  thus  not 
only  in  the  midst  of  them  but  openly  and  independently 
competing,  English  players  and  writers  cherished  a  grow- 
ing but  ineffectual  bitterness.  Thackeray,  who  knew  his 
eighteenth  century,  puts  the  matter  concisely:  "A  pro- 
digious deal  of  satire  was  brought  to  bear  against  these 
Italian  operas,  .  .  .  but  people  went  nevertheless."  2 
Certain  it  is  that  few  insults  were  too  gross  to  fling  at  the 
foreigners,  and  that  they  were  made  out  to  be  a  band  of 
Jejsuits,  spies,  and  worse.^  Pope,  in  his  Prologue  to  Addi- 
son's Cato  (17 13),  suggests  a  somewhat  more  constructive 
point  of  view,  but  one  not  out  of  keeping  with  the  rest: 

Your  scene  precariously  subsists  too  long 
On  French  translation  and  Italian  song. 
Dare  to  have  sense  yourselves;  assert  the  stage, 
Be  justly  warm'd  with  your  own  native  rage. 

And  while  Pope  elsewhere  laughed  effectively  at  the 
prize-fighters  and  rope-dancers  in  the  theatre,*  Steele 
lamented  the  hard  case  of  the  poets  who  had  been  sup- 
planted by  the  wardrobe  master,  the  scene  painter,  and 
the  stage  carpenter: 

Gay  lights  and  dresses,  long  extended  scenes, 
Daemons  and  angels  moving  in  machines, 
All  that  can  now,  or  please,  or  fright,  the  fair. 
May  be  perform'd  without  a  writer's  care. 
And  is  the  skill  of  Carpenter,  not  Player. 

1  Ed.  Lowe,  1889, 1,95. 

^  The  Virginians,  Chapter  43. 

'  In  a  theatrical  tract  entitled  Do  you  Know  what  you  are  about?  (1733), 
Senesino  is  accused  of  being  "a  Jesuit  in  disguise,  and  an  immediate  Emis- 
sary" of  Rome  (p.  16).   There  follow  certain  unsavory  charges. 

*  In  Martinus  Scriblerus  (Elwin-Courthope,  X,  406). 


OLD  LAMPS  AND  NEW  15 

Old  Shakespear's  days  could  not  thus  far  advance. 
But  what's  his  buskin  to  our  Ladder  Dance?  '■ 

With  an  eye  to  the  prevailing  fashion  in  the  theatres  of 
to-day,  it  is  interesting  to  observe  how  consistently 
dance,  song,  and  spectacle  appeared  with  renewed  em- 
phasis from  time  to  time  in  the  course  of  the  century  and 
a  half  that  followed  the  Restoration,  and  how  enthu- 
siastically the  self-appointed  guardians  of  the  stage  con- 
demned them,  or  made  use  of  them  when  it  seemed  good 
business  to  do  so.  We  have  seen  how  both  patent  houses 
succumbed  to  the  ailment  of  the  time  in  the  early  decades 
of  the  Restoration.  The  next  generation  was  no  less  open 
to  infection.  Colley  Cibber,  writing  of  the  days  before  his 
own  management  (that  is  to  say,  of  a  time  near  1700, 
when  he  was  a  very  young  actor)  sharply  attacks  Chris- 
topher Rich,  then  manager  of  Drury  Lane,  who  had  won 
control  of  the  patent  by  various  and  sundry  acts  of  sharp 
practice.  Rich's  aim,  we  hear  —  not  to  our  great  aston- 
ishment, perhaps  —  was  "not  to  mend  the  stage,  but  to 
make  money  of  it."  Hence,  he  paid  "extraordinary 
Prices  to  Singers,  Dancers,  and  other  exotick  Perform- 
ers," and  reduced  the  salaries  of  his  actors.  "Plays  of 
course  were  neglected,  actors  held  cheap.  .  .  .  And  to 
say  Truth,  his  Sense  of  every  thing  to  be  shewn  there 
was  much  upon  a  Level  with  the  Taste  of  the  Multitude, 
whose  Opinion  and  whose  Money  weigh'd  with  him  full  as 
much  as  that  of  the  best  Judges.  His  Point  was  to  please 
the  Majority,  who  could  more  easily  comprehend  any 
thing  they  saw  than  the  daintiest  things  that  could  be 
said  to  them."  And  Cibber  goes  on  to  explain  that  only 
the  jealousy  of  Rich's  dancers  and  the  fears  of  his  brick- 
layers prevented  the  manager  from  bringing  a  favorite 

^  Prologue  to  Grief  a  la  Mode  (1701).   The  Prologue  to  Rawlins's  Tun- 
bridge  Wells  (1678)  also  laments 

"  th'  invasion  of  the  forreign  Scene, 
Jack  pudding  Farce,  and  thundering  machine." 


i6  SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

elephant  of  his  upon  the  stage. ^  The  elephant,  accord- 
ingly, did  not  make  his  bow  until  1 8 1 1 ,2  but  meanwhile  a 
good  many  other  things  had  come  to  pass.  The  uprising 
of  the  irrepressible  CoUey  and  his  comrades,  and  how 
they  won  the  Drury  Lane  patent  from  old  Rich,  is  a 
story  to  be  told  later.  Meanwhile,  Cibber  says  that  long 
before  that  time  came  he  had  publicly  refused  to  act  on 
one  occasion  when  Rich  had  advertised  a  rope-dancing 
performance  as  an  added  attraction. ^ 

In  the  year  1714  John  Rich  managed  to  have  his 
father's  ill-gotten  patent  revived  and  transferred  to  him- 
self at  Lincoln's  Inn  Fields,'*  and  there  —  later  at  Covent 
Garden  Theatre  —  he  showed  himself  a  true  chip  of  the 
old  block.  Tom  Davies  tells  us  that  of  all  the  panto- 
mimes which  Rich  brought  on  the  stage  from  17 17  to 
1761  "there  was  scarce  one  which  failed  to  please  the 
public,  who  testified  their  approbation  of  them  forty  or 
fifty  nights  successively."  No  wonder  that  a  success  of 
this  sort  should  have  led  Davies  to  venture  a  generaliza- 
tion: "The  pantomime  is  a  kind  of  stage  entertainment 
which  will  always  give  more  delight  to  a  mixed  company 
than  the  best  farce  that  can  be  ever  written."  ^  And  who 
would  challenge  this  dictum  to-day,  if  Davies  had  writ- 
ten "musical  comedy"  instead  of  "pantomime"?  How- 
ever that  may  be,  it  must  be  said  that  certain  of  Davies's 
contemporaries  did  not  accept  the  situation  quite  so  com- 
placently as  he.  In  1732  an  anonymous  writer  issued  A 
Proposal  J  or  the  Better  Regulation  oj  the  Stage  y  in  the  course 
of  which  he  attacked  the  players  and  managers  as  persons 
of  low  ideals  and  no  artistic  instincts.  They  care  only  for 
money,  they  have  "destroy'd  the  Taste  they  did  not 
understand,"  and  so  "No  Body  will  wonder  now  that 
Farce,  and  Pantomimes  have  taken  the  Place  of  Shake- 

1  Apology,  II,  6;  I,  247.  ^  Apology,  II,  7. 

2  Genest,  VIII,  287-288,  320.  ■•  See  below,  p.  132. 
8  Life  oJ  Garrick,  ed.  1808,  I,  130-131. 


A, ',/.■«  ih  Arl  /Jiiv.f. 


OLD  LAMPS  AND  NEW  17 

spear,  and  Otway."^  Another  writer  angrily  asserts  that 
the  fine  gentlemen  who  are  the  self-appointed  guides  of 
public  taste  are  all  hopelessly  vulgar.  Indeed,  says  he, 
"could  Time  be  recall'd,  such  Judges  would  let  Otway 
starve,  and  Lee  run  mad  again;  while  an  Italian  singer,  or 
French  Dancer,  would  be  caress'd  and  loaded  with 
Riches."  2 

But  the  comment  of  the  angry  or  philosophic  bystander 
is  not  infrequently  ignored  by  those  who  are  in  control  of 
things,  unless  it  happens  to  coincide  with  what  they  con- 
ceive to  be  their  immediate  advantage.  I  have  quoted 
Colley  Gibber's  objections  to  "the  barbarous  entertain- 
ments so  expensively  set  off  to  corrupt"  public  taste, 
when  he  was  still  a  young  actor  and  Christopher  Rich 
was  the  guilty  manager.  But  with  the  passing  of  the 
years  the  good  Colley's  prudence  got  the  better  of  his 
moral  indignation.  In  the  course  of  the  second  and  third 
decades  of  the  eighteenth  century  Gibber  —  together 
with  Dogget,  Wilks  and  Booth  —  had  become  manager 
of  Drury  Lane.  But  Gibber  the  laureate  and  manager 
did  not  set  his  face  against  pantomimes  and  shows  when 
these  were  in  fashion.  In  his  invaluable  and  altogether 
delightful  apologia  pro  vita  sua  he  confesses  his  incon- 
sistency with  an  appearance  of  fine  frankness.  "I  did  it 
against  my  Gonscience!  and  had  not  Virtue  enough  to 
starve  by  opposing  a  Multitude  that  would  have  been  too 
hard  for  me."  ^  His  colleague  Booth,  when  reproached  on 
the  same  subject,  expressed  himself  with  equal  candor. 
He  genially  told  his  critics  that  he  "thought  a  thin  Au- 
dience was  a  much  greater  Indignity  to  the  Stage  than 
any  they  mentioned,  and  a  full  one  most  likely  to  keep  up 
the  Spirit  of  the  Actor,  and  consequently  heighten  the 
Representation  .  .  .  For  his  Part,  he  confessed  he  con- 
sidered Profit  as  well  as  Fame:  —  And  as  to  their  Plays, 
—  even  they  reaped  some  Advantage  from  the  Panto- 

»  Pp.  23-24.  2  Ralph,  p.  157.  3  Apology,  II,  182. 


i8  SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

mimes  by  adding  to  the  Accounts,  which  enabled  the 
Managers  to  be  more  expensive  in  Habits,  and  other 
Decorations  of  the  Theatre  in  general,  and  to  give  better 
Encouragement  to  the  Performers."  ^  Benjamin  Victor, 
the  friend  of  Colley  Gibber,  remarks  that  a  pantomime 
which  cost  £3,000  produced  £10,000  in  a  single  season  ^  — 
a  bit  of  information  which  adds  point  to  Booth's  remarks. 
History  repeated  itself  with  delightful  regularity  when 
Garrick  took  up  the  managerial  reins  at  Old  Drury  in 
1747.  That  this  great  actor  was  devoted  to  the  legitimate 
drama  and  to  Shakspere  —  according  to  his  lights  —  is 
as  certain  as  anything  can  well  be,  except  one  other  cer- 
tainty: that  no  man  was  ever  more  eager  for  praise  and 
fame  than  he,  or  more  proud  of  his  achievement  in  his 
chosen  art.  Yet  Garrick,  no  less  than  his  predecessors, 
knew  his  audience  and  what  it  liked,  and  so  there  came 
times  when  he  was  content  to  make  room  for  French 
dancers  and  Italian  pantomimists,  to  the  temporary  ex- 
clusion of  Shakspere  and  Restoration  comedy  and  even  of 
himself.  As  early  as  1748  Garrick  suffered  violent  casti- 
gation  in  a  document  entitled  D — ry-L — ne  P — yh — se 
Broke  Open.  In  a  Letter  to  Mr.  G — .  The  anonymous 
writer  asks  several  leading  questions.  "What  Occasion," 
he  inquires,  "  (in  the  Name  of  Common-Sense)  had  you 
for  French  Dancers  ?  Was  not  this  loading  Thespis'  Cart 
with  unnecessary  expensive  Lumber,  which  serve  only  to 
weaken  the  Carriage,  and  endanger  the  Axletree?"  All 
would  have  been  well,  he  adds,  if  Garrick  had  only 
"dropp'd  this  foreign  Rubbish."  »  But  the  general  public 
did  not  share  this  view.  By  1755  there  had  been  com- 
plaints that  the  managers  were  not  giving  them  sufficient 
novelty.  Garrick  and  Lacy,  his  partner,  responded  by 
preparing  a  "grand  pantomime  Entertainment"  called 

'  Theophilus  Cibber,  Lives  and  Characters,  1753,  I,  68-69. 
^  History  of  the  Theatres  oj  London  and  Dublin,  1761, 1,  135. 
=>  P.  16. 


OLD  LAMPS  AND  NEW  19 

The  Chinese  Festival,  in  which  a  hundred  persons  were 
employed,  Italians,  Swiss,  Germans,  and  Frenchmen. 
Unfortunately  for  the  managers,  war  with  France  broke 
out  while  the  piece  was  in  rehearsal,  and  when  they 
rashly  attempted  to  produce  it  without  discharging  the 
foreigners,  the  result  was  a  riot,  and  a  loss  of  over  £4,000.^ 
But  when  due  allowance  was  made  for  the  prejudices 
of  the  audience,  the  success  of  spectacular  productions 
continued  unabated  throughout  the  century,  and  after. 
An  anecdote  told  of  Sheridan,  Garrick's  successor  in  the 
management  of  Drury  Lane,  will  serve  equally  to  point 
the  moral  and  adorn  our  tale.  In  1797  Cooke,  the  trage- 
dian, delivered  himself  of  an  unflattering  comment  on  the 
tremendous  hit  scored  by  Monk  Lewis's  nonsensical 
Gothic  play,  The  Castle  Spectre.  "I  hope,"  said  Cooke, 
"it  will  not  be  hereafter  believed  that  The  Castle  Spectre 
could  attract  crowded  houses  when  the  most  sublime  pro- 
ductions of  the  immortal  Shakspere  would  be  played  to 
empty  benches."  Shortly  afterwards  Sheridan  and  Lewis 
happened  to  get  into  a  dispute,  and  Lewis  offered  to  bet 
Sheridan  all  the  money  his  play  had  brought  to  the  man- 
agement. Sheridan  demurred,  holding  that  he  could  not 
afford  to  risk  so  much.  "But,"  he  added,  "I'll  tell  you 
what  I'll  do,  —  I'll  bet  you  all  it  is  worth! "2  Sheridan,' 
like  Cibber,  apparently  went  against  his  conscience,  but 
the  crowding  of  the  legitimate  drama  by  its  jolly  half- 
brothers  went  merrily  on.  The  last  protest  against  this 
sort  of  thing  that  I  can  record  here  is  that  of  Richard 
Cumberland,  the  author  of  The  West  Indian,  who  threw 
down  his  gauntlet  in  1804:  "I  have  .  .  .  never  dis- 
graced my  colours  by  abandoning  the  cause  of  the  legiti- 
mate comedy,  to  whose  service  I  am  sworn,  and  in  whose 
defence  I  have  kept  the  field  for  nearly  half  a  century,  till 
at  last  I  have  survived  all  true  national  taste,  and  lived  to 

1  Victor,  II,  133-136;  Genest,  IV,  442-444. 

*  Biographia  Dramatica,  1812,  II,  87;  Genest,  VII,  22Z' 


20  SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

see  buffoonery,  spectacle  and  puerility  so  effectually 
triumph,  that  now  to  be  repulsed  from  the  stage  is  to  be 
recommended  to  the  closet,  and  to  be  applauded  by  the 
theatre  is  little  else  than  a  passport  to  the  puppet-show."  ^ 
Over  a  hundred  years  have  passed  since  Cumberland 
made  his  plaint  against  things  as  they  are,  but  it  would  be 
an  easy  matter  to  find  to-day  a  host  of  writers— some  of 
no  small  merit  —  who  would  cordially  echo  almost  every 
count  in  the  indictment. ^  By  way  of  balancing  values,  let 
us  glance  briefly  at  the  other  side  —  as  presented,  cu- 
riously enough,  by  one  of  the  indignant  opponents  of  the 
French  dancers  and  Itahan  singers  of  old:  ^ 

Such  is  the  Depravity  of  human  Nature,  that  if  we  are  not 
pleas'd,  we  will  not  be  instructed;  therefore  all  the  additional 
Ornaments  to  Stage-Entertainments  are  highly  necessary  to 
entice  us  in,  else  we  should  never  sit  out  a  tedious  Lecture  of 
Morality  .  .  .  The  Majority  of  all  Audiences  would  never 
appear  in  a  Theatre,  were  they  not  more  charm'd  with  the 
Beauty  of  the  Scenes,  the  Surprize  of  the  Machinery,  the 
Magnificence  of  the  Habits,  and  Variety  of  Musick  and 
Dancing,  than  with  the  fine  Language,  the  noble  Sentiments, 
the  Precepts,  and  divine  Lessons  contain'd  in  a  Tragedy  or 
Comedy  .  .  .  The  Generality  of  Mankind  are  ...  in  a 
State  of  Infancy  the  greatest  Part  of  their  Lives.  [The 
ancients,  accordingly,]  were  oblig'd  to  perswade  them  to 
swallow  the  black  Potion  of  Instruction  by  promising  the 
Sugar-Plumb  of  Delight. 

In  fine  (whatever  may  be  said  as  to  the  eternal  youthful- 
ness  of  mankind),  "no  profit  grows  where  is  no  pleasure 
taken."  It  is  certain  that  the  theatre  will  always  seek  to 
provide  pleasure  of  various  sorts,  higher  or  lower,  to  suit 
the  demands  of  its  audience,  and  that  playwrights  and 
managers  will  produce  what  is  wanted,  —  but  also  that 

1  Memoirs,  1807,  I,  270. 

^  I  cannot  refrain  from  citing  as  one  of  my  authorities  Mr.  Shaw's  latest 
(and  perhaps  best)  preface,  that  to  Heart-break  House. 
'  Ralph,  pp.  129-130. 


'■LWbfiist^ 


>'fi,',.-  /i.,/'.,u/  ;  M....,^A,./yy-..<  /f,,..,,^., ,.,:,■/„.,.,.. ..'/,, .,/,j,/^/:,;V:..„^  /^...,/^,. 


OLD  LAMPS  AND  NEW  21 

audiences  will  in  the  long  run  want  what  is  produced,  if  it 
is  only  good  enough.  The  popularity  of  musical  extrav- 
aganza need  discourage  no  lover  of  the  legitimate  drama, 
and  no  honest  fancier  of  what  is  best  in  that  jolly  jingling 
kind  need  be  ashamed  of  his  predilection.  On  the  other 
hand,  good  comedy  and  good  tragedy  are  not  dead. 
Pinero,  Jones,  and  Barrie,  Stephen  Phillipps,  Galsworthy, 
Masefield,  Synge,  Bernard  Shaw,  and  a  host  of  others 
hold  the  stage  in  the  flesh  or  in  the  spirit.  And  Thalia  and 
Melpomene  will  find  other  sons  to  do  them  honor  in  times 
to  come.  In  this  firm  conviction  we  may  turn  to  observe 
how  the  playwrights  fared  in  times  past. 


Chapter  II 


THE  PLAYWRIGHTS 

SHAKSPERE,  according  to  a  tradition  handed  down 
by  Oldys,^  received  but  £5  for  Hamlet.  To  be  sure, 
money  in  those  times  bought  far  more  than  it  does  to-day, 
but  even  so,  accustomed  as  we  are  to  hearing  of  generous 
payments  to  successful  playwrights  and  novelists,  the 
sum  seems  niggardly,  and  one  would  fain  believe  that  for 
once  tradition  understates.  The  tradition,  however,  seems 
to  be  well  founded.  Let  it  be  said  at  once  that  what  is 
known  concerning  the  earnings  of  Elizabethan  play- 
wrights and  actors  is  not  a  mere  compound  of  tradition 
and  hearsay.  Theye  is  a  familiar  but  none  the  less  inval- 
uable stock  of  information  in  the  Diary  and  miscellaneous 
papers  of  Philip  Henslowe,'  the  chief  owner  of  the  Bear 
Garden,  the  Rose,  the  Hope,  and  (with  his  son-in-law 
Edward  Alleyn,  the  great  actor)  of  the  Fortune  Theatre. 
Alleyn  was  the  main  rival  of  Richard  Burbage,  and  his 
company,  the  Admiral's  Men,  were  for  many  years  the 
chief  competitors  of  Shakspere's  company.  Therein  lies 
the  significance  of  the  Henslowe  documents,  and  in  the 
fact  that  they  record  hundreds  of  payments  to  players 
and  dramatists.  Among  the  latter  were  such  men  as  Jon- 
son,  Webster,  Middleton,  and  Dekker,  who  wrote  for 
Shakspere's  company  as  well  as  for  the  Admiral's  Men. 
Since  competition  between  these  two  great  companies  was 
keen,  it  is  reasonable  to  suppose  that  the  prices  paid  by 

^  Malone's  Shakspeare,  ed.  Boswell,  1821,  III,  162.  Full  references  and 
documentation  for  the  pages  immediately  following  appear  in  the  writer's 
article  on  Shakspere's  Income  {Studies  in  Philology,  April,  1918),  XV,  82  fF. 

*  Henslowe' s  Diary  and  the  Henslowe  Papers y  admirably  edited  by  Mr.  W. 
W.  Greg. 


THE  PLAYWRIGHTS  23 

Henslowe  were  representative  of  the  current  rates  and 
probably  scarcely  lower  than  those  of  the  Shakspere- 
Burbage  company  at  the  Globe  and  Blackfriars.  Hen- 
slowe's  entry  in  1603,  therefore,  of  a  payment  of  £6  for 
Thomas  Heywood's  masterpiece,  A  Woman  Killed  with 
Kindness^  suggests  that  the  Hamlet  tradition  is  not  far 
from  the  truth. 

The  Diary  shows,  further,  that  £6  was  the  average  pay- 
ment for  plays  before  1603,  and  that  eight  or  ten  years 
later,  when  competition  had  become  keener,  the  rate  had 
risen  to  £10  or  £12.  Robert  Dabnrne,  one  of  the  minor 
playwrights  of  the  Henslowe  companies,  rf^rpjvH  ^^^^^ 
sums  lor  his  work  in  161""^.  and  no  less  a  man  than  Ben 
^fmison  testifies  to  the  growing  demand  for  the  services  of 
dramatists  who  took  with  the  public.  In  the  third  act  of 
The  Alchemist  we  read  how  Dapper,  the  lawyer's  clerk,  is 
to  grow  so  wealthy  by  the  aid  of  Subtle's  charms  that  the 
ordinaries  will  vie  with  each  other  to  give  him 

The  best  attendance,  the  best  drink,  —  sometimes 
Two  glasses  of  Canary,  and  pay  nothing  .  . 
You  shall  ha'  your  ordinaries  bid  for  him 
As  playhouses  for  a  poet. 

Though  the  playhouses  competed  for  Jonson's  services, 
he  was  never  troubled  with  an  excessive  income.  Shak- 
spere's  company  produced  seven  ofhis  plays  between  1598 
and  1616,  and  the  Admiral's  Men  took  many  others, 
for  Jonson's  popularity  was  then  hardly  second  even  to 
Shakspere's.  And  yet  as  late  as  1619  Jonson  told  Drum- 
mond  that  his  muse  had  proved  but  a  mean  mistress  and 
that  all  his  plays  (he  had  written  a  dozen  of  his  own  by 
that  time  and  had  collaborated  in  at  least  four  others)  had 
never  brought  him  £200  —  an  average  of  only  about  £12 
each.^  All  the  evidence  o^  Henslowe' s  Diary  and  the  allu- 
sions in  plays  and  other  documents  of  the  time  substan- 

^  Drummond's  Conversations  with  Jonson^  Shakespeare  Society,  p.  35;  cf. 
p.  37.  Cf.  Sheavyn,  Literary  Profession  in  the  Elizabethan  /ige,  p.  92. 


24  SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

tiate  this  figure.^  It  is  clear,  in  short,  that  the  literary- 
profession  was  wretchedly  paid,  and  that  dramatists  who 
did  not  don  the  sock  or  buskin  but  relied  upon  their  pens 
alone  —  such  men  as  Greene,  Dekker,  Massinger,  Haugh- 
ton,  and  Chettle  —  too  often  faced  long  sojourns  in  debt- 
ors' prisons  "amongst  the  Gothes  and  Vandalls,  where 
Barbarousnes  is  predominant." ^  From  time  to  time  Hens- 
lowe  bailed  them  out  ^  so  that  they  might  the  better  do 
their  business  of  supplying  his  theatres  with  new  plays, 
and  on  occasion  he,  and  other  owners  as  well,  allowed 
them  small  advances  upon  future  work:  "earnest,"  or 
"  presse-money "  as  it  is  called  in  Dekker 's  Satiromastix^ 
while  the  rest  was  sometimes  paid  for  sheet  by  sheet  or 
scene  by  scene  as  the  playwright  delivered  it.*  It  must 
be  added,  however,  that  if  the  prices  were  small,  the  de- 
mand was  large  and  steady.  Long,  continuous  runs  were 
unknown  in  Shakspere's  time.  What  is  more,  the  Eliza- 
bethans gladly  paid  double  admission  to  see  new  plays, 
and  so  the  managers  gave  them  an  astonishing  number.^ 
Henslowe's  companies  probably  bought  plays  at  the 
cheapest  possible  price,  but  it  is  interesting  to  observe 
that  of  their  known  outlay  of  some  £1,300  for  plays,  cos- 
tumes, properties,  license  fees,  and  other  expenses  incurred 
between  October,  1597,  and  December,  1602,6  over  £600 
went  to  the  playwrights  —  a  proportion  scarcely  at- 
tained in  later  times. 

The  Elizabethan  dramatist,  moreover,  was  sometimes 
able  to  add  small  sums  to  those  he  earned  for  writing  new 
plays.  In  those  days  "the  jig  was  called  for  when  the 
play  was  done,"  a  special  prologue  or  epilogue  was  often 

'  See  above,  p.  22,  n.  i. 

2  Dekker,  letter  from  the  King's  Bench,  September  I2,  1616  {Papers, 
p.  92). 

2  Papers^  pp.  65-67. 

*  Papers^  pp.  72-75. 

*  See  below,  p.  233. 

^  This  summary  is  based  upon  Henslowes  Diary,  I,  82-174. 


THE  PLAYWRIGHTS 


25 


required,  and  old  plays,  of  course,  were  refurbished  from 
time  to  time.   In  the  year  1599  a  certain  modest  "cobler 
of  Poetry  called  a  play-patcher"  and  named  Dekker  (for 
so  he  describes  himself)  earned  as  much  as  £9  by  putting 
Old  Fortunatus  into  new  livery.    This,  however,  was  an 
unusually  large  fee,  for  Ben  Jonson  got  but  £2  for  his  re- 
vision of  The  Spanish  Tragedy  in  1601,  and  Dekker  him- 
self only  \os.  more  for  his  mending  of  Sir  John  Oldcastle 
the  year  after.^   In  Jonson  and  Dekker's  time  prologues 
and  epilogues  were  less  in  demand  than  later  when  Nell 
Gwynn  and  Mrs.  Barry  delighted  the  town,  but  even  in 
the  earlier  period  the  playwrights  could  count  upon  earn- 
ing an  occasional  crown  or  two  by  composing  prologues 
and  epilogues  to  order.   Thus,  Henslowe  records  a  pay- 
ment of  5 J.  to  Middleton  in  1602  "for  a  prologe  &  a  epe- 
loge  ...  for  the  corte,"  the  play  being  Friar  Bacon  and 
Friar  Bungay^  and  Chettle  earned  the  same  fee  on_an^  . 
otHer_occasion  that  year.^    Ijiyg,  years  earligj^Henslowe^  j*'«y  yj 
Kad  paid  6^".  8<^."iFor~two  jigsT  but  these  may  haveSeirc^ 
"very  slight  pieces  or  very  old,  for  in  The  HogJmihJost  hi_s  _ 
T^earl'^a.  play  of  the  year  161-^,  ther£_app£ar-'>  a  manager^ 
who  offers  to  the  author  of  a  single  ji^.  first  "a  brace  of, 
angels "  (£1) "aTid  then  a  brace more^' besidesniuchdriak- 
of  free-cost"  and"^^box  for  your  friend  at_ajieaU2lg:y-"J. 
AtteF  the  Kestoration  the  playwrights  as  a  rule  no 
longer  received  a  flat  purchase  price  for  their  work;  in- 
stead, they  were  paid  by  the  profits  of  a  benefit,  which 
usually  came  on  the  third  performance.*   This  arrange- 
ment goes  back  to  Shakspere's  time,  though  it  probably 
did  not  become  well  established  until  a  few  years  before 
his  death.   This  much  is  certain:  from  1592  to  1602  the 
Admiral's  Men  frequently  allowed  their  poets  the  sum  of 
los.  "as  a  gefte"  "over  &  above"  their  "price,"  and  we 

^  Grosart's  Dekker,  II,  147;  Diary,  I,  114-116,  149,  179-181;  II,  179. 
2  Diary,  I,  172,  173.  ^  Diary,  I,  70;  Collier's  Dodsley,  VI,  339. 

*  Sometimes,  in  the  earlier  days,  on  the  second. 


5^ 


26  SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

know  that  after  successful  first  performances  Drayton, 
Munday,  Dekker,  and  other  dramatists  profited  in  this 
way,^  D'Avenant,  in  The  Playhouse  to  be  Let  {ca.  1663) 
speaks  of 

An  old  tradition 
That,  in  the  times  of  mighty  Tamburlaine 
Of  conjuring  Faustus  and  the  Beauchamps  bold, 
You  poets  us'd  to  have  the  second  day,  —  "^ 

but  Henslowe's  records  prove  that  such  was  not  the  case 
when  Doctor  Faustus  and  Tamberlaine  were  being  acted 
by  the  Admiral's  Men  between  1592  and  1597,  for  his 
entries  of  daily  receipts  show  no  lessening  of  profits  to 
him  for  the  second  and  third  performances  of  new  plays. 
Nor  does  it  seem  likely  that  the  Admiral's  Men  would 
have  paid  their  poets  the  ten-shilling  bonuses  in  1602  if 
the  benefit  system  had  come  in  by  that  time.  By  16 10, 
however,  it  was  established,  for  in  that  year  Dekker  men- 
tions it  in  the  course  of  his  protest  against  commercialism 
in  the  theatre,  in  the  Prologue  to  his  Ij  it  be  not  Goody  the 
Devifs  in  it: 

It  is  not  Praise  is  sought  for  (now)  but  Pence, 

Tho  dropd  from  Greasie-apron-audience. 

Clapd  may  he  be  with  Thunder,  that  plucks  Bayes 

With  such  Foule  Hands  and  with  Squint-Eyes  does  gaze 

On  Pallas  Shield,  not  caring,  so  he  Gaines 

A  cramd  Third  Day,  what  Filth  drops  from  his  Braines. 

Again,  three  years  later,  Dabornewrote  Henslowe  that 
he  and Tourneur_wan ted  'boOwdv pown3s_^w/M^Q^^ 
plus  of  the  second  day  "  for  their  Bellman  of  London.^  After 
the  Restoration  this  overplus  often  made  a  substantial 
sum,  but  in  Daborne's  time  the  flat  payment  of  ten  or 
twelve  pounds  remained  the  chief  item  of  the  poets'  earn- 

*  Diary,  1, 113, 136, 181,  etc.  Full  references  for  the  material  immediately 
below  appear  in  the  writer's  article  on  Playwrights'  Benefits,  etc.,  Studies  in 
Philology,  April,  1919,  XVI,  187  ff. 

^  Act  i  {Dramatic  Works,  IV,  31). 

'  Papers,  p.  75. 


THE  PLAYWRIGHTS  27 

ings.^  And  these,  together  with  all  the  "overplus"  which 
such  men  as  Dekker  and  Daborne  might  claim,  did  not 
save  them  from  requiring  Henslowe's  aid  when  the 
beadle  and  the  debtors'  prison  frowned  upon  them. 

More  fortunate  were  their  fellows  who  were  also  actor- 
sharers,^  that  is,  ranking  actors,  who  shared  in  the  com- 
pany profits  —  and  thus  enjoyed  an  additional  income 
which  in  itself  was  much  larger  and  more  stable  than  that 
of  the  playwrights  who  lived  by  the  pen  alone.  Many 
more  of  the  Elizabethans  than  has  sometimes  been  sup- 
posed, served  both  the  theatre  and  themselves  in  this 
double  capacity,  for  among  the  dramatists  who  were  also 
actors  of  sufficient  merit  to  rank  as  sharers  in  their  respec- 
tive companies  were  not  only  Shakspere  and  the  two 
Rowleys,  but  also  Ben  Jonson,  Thomas  Heywood,  Na- 
thaniel Field,  Richard  Brome,  and  eight  or  ten  lesser 
men.3  Henslowe  treats  of  some  of  them  as  sharers,  and 
others  are  listed  as  such  in  company  warrants  and  other 
documents.  In  due  season  I  shall  present  the  evidence 
as  to  the  earnings  of  Elizabethan  actor-sharers.''  For  the 
moment  it  will  suffice  to  say  that  Shakspere's  income  as 
an  actor-sharer  probably  added  a  hundred  pounds  a  year 
to  the  returns  from  his  plays,  and  that  Heywood,  Jonson, 
and  the  rest  must  have  profited  proportionately.  Shak- 
spere and  some  few  of  his  fellows  *  had  still  another  source 

'  See  above,  p.  26,  n.  i. 

*  On  the  Elizabethan  shareholding  system  see  p.  28,  below. 

^  Among  them  Robert  Wilson,  Robert  Armin,  Richard  Gunnell,  Charles 
Massye,  John  Singer,  John  Shanks,  William  Bird,  and  perhaps  William 
Kemp.  The  evidence  concerning  Jonson,  Brome,  and  Field  I  have  presented 
in  Modem  Language  Notes,  XXXVI,  88  fF.,  and  Modem  Language  Review, 
XVI,  61  fF.  On  Heywood  see  Diary,  I,  178,  180,  185-190;  II,  284-285. 
On  Wilson,  see  Murray,  English  Dramatic  Companies,  1,  28;  Diary,  II,  320- 
321.  On  Armin,  see  Murray,  I,  146.  On  Gunnell,  see  Murray,  I,  211-214, 
215;  Papers,  pp.  27-29;  Shakespeare  Society  Papers,  IV,  102.  On  Massye,  see 
Papers,  pp.  64-65;  Diary,  II,  296-297;  Murray,  I,  211-212.  On  Singer  see 
Diary,  I,  95;  II,  310.  On  Shanks,  see  Malone,  III,  220-221;  Halliwell- 
Phillipps,  Outlines,  I,  312  fF.  On  Bird  see  Diary,  I,  172;  II,  24I-243. 

*  See  below,  p.  78.  ^  Gunnell,  Massye,  and  Shanks. 


28  SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

of  income,  since  they  were  at  once  playwrights,  actor- 
sharers,  and  housekeepers.  In  other  words,  they  shared 
in  the  profits  of  the  playhouse  owners  as  well  as  in  those 
of  the  dramatic  company. 

This  complicated  arrangement  of  affairs  is  explained 
by  the  fact  that  in  Shakspere's  time  one  portion  of  the 
daily  takings  at  the  theatre  was  set  aside  for  the  dramatic 
company  (the  actor-sharers  divided  among  themselves 
all  the  gatherings  at  the  playhouse  door,  plus  half  the  gal- 
lery receipts,  —  for  the  Elizabethan  playgoer  paid  his 
penny  or  twopence  on  entering,  and  further  sums  at  the 
gallery  box  or  stage  entrance  if  he  did  not  care  to  stay  in 
the  pit) ;  whereas  the  remainder  of  the  takings,  the  other 
half  of  the  "gallery  money,"  was  the  housekeepers'  share. 
To  make  sure  of  the  continued  service  of  important  mem- 
bers of  their  company,  the  housekeepers  of  the  Globe  and 
Blackfriars  admitted  such  men  as  Shakspere,  Hemings, 
and  Condell  to  share  with  them  also.^  The  proprietors  of 
the  theatres  occupied  by  the  children's  companies  used 
the  same  method  to  secure  the  services  of  popular  dram- 
atists who  were  not  actors.  John  Marston,  for  example, 
was  a  housekeeper  of  the  Queen's  Revels  Company  before 
1608,  and  Drayton  held  a  proprietary  share  in  the  White- 
friars. ^ 

Shakspere  earned  another  hundred  pounds  a  year  as  a 
housekeeper,  and  he,  unlike  some  of  his  colleagues,  knew 
how  to  husband  his  resources  and  died  a  comparatively 
wealthy  man.^  Jonson  (with  earning  powers  almost  as 
great  as  Shakspere's)  makes  one  of  his  characters  describe 
him  as  "the  poorest"  in  a  group  of  poets  and  therefore  as 
"the  likeliest  to  envy  or  to  detract,"  and  he  admits  "the 
filth  of  poverty,"  though  he  disavows  the  envy.  Greene 
and  Massinger  lived  and  died  poor,  whereas  Shirley 

1  See  Halliwell-Phillipps,  Outlines,  I,  313  ff. 

"^  Wallace,  Shakespeare  and  his  London  Associates,  pp.  78,  81;  Greenstreet, 
New  Shakspere  Society  Transactions,  1 887-1 892,  p.  272. 
^  See  above,  p.  22,  n.  i. 


THE  PLAYWRIGHTS  29 

amassed  a  competence. ^  In  short,  the  personal  equation 
played  a  very  large  part  in  determining  the  individual 
fortunes  of  the  playwrights  in  Elizabethan  times  as  well 
as  later  —  and  that  element  successfully  resists  analysis. 
Dryden  had  many  a  crammed  third  day,  and  yet  he  had 
to  work  hard  to  support  himself  in  his  old  age.  Steele  was 
poor  with  an  income  of  a  thousand  pounds  a  year.  Kit 
Smart  all  but  starved  to  death,  and  Goldsmith  died  heav- 
ily in  debt.  Southerne's  plays  made  him  a  rich  man,  the 
while  CoUey  Gibber  earned  large  sums,  only  to  lose  them 
again  at  dice. 

All  this  is  but  to  say  that  human  nature  had  not 
changed  essentially,  and  that  a  playwright  off  the  stage  is 
likely  to  be  as  human  a  son  of  Adam  as  any  that  ever 
breathed.  But  when  the  Restoration  broke  the  long  si- 
lence which  had  held  the  stage  since  the  closing  of  the 
theatres  in  1642,  the  business  relations  between  the  play- 
wrights and  their  employers  did  change  to  some  extent. 
Indeed,  an  interesting  change  had  come  about  at  some  of 
the  theatres  shortly  before  they  were  closed.  In  1635 
Richard  Brome,  the  poet  of  The  Jovial  Crew  and  The 
Antipodes,  entered  into  a  three-year  contract  with  the 
company  at  the  Salisbury  Court,  agreeing  to  write  three 
plays  a  year.  Instead  of  providing  a  definite  rate  of  pay- 
ment, the  contract  stipulated  that  Brome  was  to  have  a 
salary  of  15^.  a  week  and  the  proceeds  of  a  benefit  for 
each  play.  Three  years  later  the  company  offered  him  an 
increase  of  ^s.  a  week  to  stay  with  them,  but  he  deserted 
them  in  favor  of  the  Cockpit,  whereupon  "a  trim  bus- 
iness .  .  .  the  players  going  to  law  with  their  poets  "  en- 
sued.^   The  Actors'  Remonstrance  appeared  in  1644,  and 

^  Poetaster,  v,  i,  77-78.  Professor  Thorndike  {Shakespeare's  Theatre,  p. 
354)  estimates  Jonson's  income  from  his  plays  and  masques  at  £60  a  year, 
and  this  was  augmented  during  part  of  his  career  by  his  earnings  as  a  player 
and  his  pension  of  £100  as  laureate.  See  also  A.  H.  Nason,  James  Shirley, 
Dramatist,  pp.  138,  158-160. 

^  Wallace,   Century    Magazine,  LXXX,  751;   C.   E.   Andrews,  Richard 


30  SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

that  interesting  document  not  only  bemoans  the  distress 
of  the  quaHty  consequent  upon  the  closing  of  the  theatres, 
but  adds  a  kind  word  for  the  playwrights.  "Some  of  our 
ablest  ordinarie  Poets,"  it  notes,  "'mstea.do( Ihetr  annua// 
stipends  and  beneficia//  second-day es,  [are]  for  meere  neces- 
sitie  compelled  to  get  a  living  by  writing  contemptible 
penny-pamphlets."  ^ 

The  Restoration  left  the  poets  free  to  enjoy  their  an- 
cient privileges,  such  as  they  were.  Charles  Gildon,  in 
Tfie  Laws  of  Poetry  (1721)  ^  complains  of  the  meagre  en- 
couragement given  to  Dryden,  Lee,  and  Otway,  but  he 
admits  that  "  'tis  true,  that  after  the  restoration,  when  the 
two  houses  struggled  for  the  favour  of  the  town,  the  tak- 
ing poets  were  secur'd  to  either  house  by  a  sort  of  retain- 
ing fee,  which  seldom  or  never  amounted  to  more  than 
forty  shillings  a  week;  nor  was  that  of  any  long  contin- 
uance; however,  that  was  some  help  to  the  support  of  a 
poet,  during  the  time  of  his  writing  for  the  stage."  Ma- 
lone  3  was  disposed  to  rate  this  retaining  fee  somewhat 
more  highly  than  Gildon,  but  for  the  rest  he  supports  that 
writer's  statement.  He  adds  an  excerpt  from  a  complaint 
of  the  King's  Players  against  Dryden  and  the  Duke's 
Men,  a  document  which  probably  dates  from  1678.  It 
contains  much  valuable  information  and  deserves  to  be 
quoted: 

Upon  Mr.  Dryden's  binding  himself  to  write  three  playes  a 
yeere,  hee  .  .  .  was  admitted  and  continued  as  a  sharer  in 
the  king's  playhouse  for  diverse  years,  and  received  for  his 
share  and  a  quarter  three  or  four  hundred  pounds,  communi- 
bus  annis;  but  though  he  received  the  moneys,  we  received  not 
the  playes,  not  one  in  a  yeare.  After  which,  the  house  being 
burnt,  the  company  in  building  another  contracted  great 
debts,  so  that  shares  fell  much  short  of  what  they  were  for- 

Brome,  pp.  13  fF.  {Yale  Studies,  XLVI.)  Cf.  Brome's  Court  Beggar,  ii  (Pear- 
son ed.,  I,  215);  Shakespeare  Society  Papers,  IV,  100. 

1  January  24,  1643-44  (Hazlitt,  English  Drama  and  Stage,  p.  264). 

»P.38.  3111,173-174. 


THE  PLAYWRIGHTS  31 

merly.  Thereupon  Mr.  Dryden  complaining  ...  of  his 
want  of  proffit,  the  company  was  so  kind  to  him  that  they  not 
only  did  not  presse  him  for  the  playes  .  .  ,  but  they  did  also 
at  his  earnest  request  give  him  a  third  day  for  his  last  new 
play,  called  All  for  Love  .  .  .  He  acknowledged  it  as  a  guift 
and  a  particular  kindnesse  of  the  company.  Yet  notwith- 
standing this  kind  proceeding,  Mr.  Dryden  has  now,  jointly 
with  Mr.  Lee  (who  was  in  pension  with  us  to  the  last  day  of 
our  playing,  and  shall  continue)  written  a  play  called  Oedipus, 
and  given  it  to  the  Duke's  company,  contrary  to  his  agree- 
ment ...  to  the  great  prejudice  and  almost  undoing  of  the 
company,  they  being  the  only  poets  remaining  with  us.  Mr. 
Crowne,  being  under  the  like  agreement  with  the  duke's 
house,  writt  a  play  called  The  Destruction  of  Jerusalem,  and, 
being  forced  by  their  refusall  of  it,  to  bring  it  to  us,  the  said 
company  compelled  us,  after  the  studying  of  it,  and  a  vast  ex- 
pence  in  scenes  and  cloaths,  to  buy  off  their  clayme,  by  paying 
all  the  pension  he  had  received  from  them,  amounting  to  one 
hundred  and  twelve  pounds  paid  by  the  king's  company,  be- 
sides near  forty  pounds  he  the  said  Mr.  Crowne  paid  out  of  his 
owne  pocket. 

And  so  the  King's  Players  petitioned  that  Dryden  and 
Lee's  (Edipus  be  adjudged  their  property. 

A  number  of  facts  emerge  from  this  interesting  docu- 
ment. It  appears,  first,  that  Dryden  (like  Brome  before 
him)  bound  himself  to  supply  his  company  with  three 
plays  a  year.  Unlike  Lee  and  Crowne  (so  far  as  is  known) 
he  drew  for  his  pay  the  income  of  i^  company  shares.^ 
On  the  value  of  these  shares  I  shall  have  something  more 
to  say  presently.  It  is  clear,  meanwhile,  that  Dryden's 
contract  did  not  entitle  him  to  a  benefit,  since  the  one  al- 
lowed him  upon  All  for  Love  is  represented  as  a  special 
concession.  Dryden  may  have  had  also  a  retaining  fee 
or  "pension,"  like  Lee  and  Crowne.  The  document  does 
not  indicate  how  long  a  period  of  time  was  covered  by 

^  I  find  Dryden  mentioned  as  a  sharer  in  the  King's  Men  as  early  as  1668 
(British  Museum  Addl.  MS.  20,726). 


32  SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

Crowne's  pension  of  £152,  and  it  is  quite  possible  that  he 
and  Lee  received  only  the  40J.  a  week  of  which  Gildon 
speaks.  Finally,  it  is  obvious  that  contracts  between 
companies  and  dramatists  were  no  more  sacred  after  the 
Restoration  than  before.  The  King's  Men  get  ready  to 
produce  a  play  written  by  Crowne,  who  is  under  contract 
to  the  other  house,  and  that  house  retaliates  by  accepting 
a  play  by  Lee  and  Dryden,  the  poets  of  the  King's  house. 
And  then,  as  in  Brome's  time  (and  in  spite  of  the  fact  that 
"pensions  "  or  salaries  have  been  paid  and  accepted),  fol- 
lows the  spectacle  of  the  players  going  to  law  with  their 
poets.  No  doubt  the  poets  had  their  grievances,  but  un- 
der the  circumstances  it  is  not  surprising  that  the  practice 
of  paying  these  pensions,  as  Gildon  remarks,  was  not  "of 
long  continuance."  At  any  rate,  one  does  not  hear  it  men- 
tioned again  in  the  closing  decades  of  the  seventeenth 
century. 

Certain  dramatists  in  those  decades  held  shares  in  the 
theatres  on  much  the  same  terms  as  Dryden,  but  they  too 
found  that  theatrical  shares  in  the  Restoration  "fell 
much  short  of  what  they  were  formerly,"  and  so  they 
came  to  rely  more  and  more  upon  the  profits  of  their  ben- 
efits as  their  one  substantial  source  of  income.  Share- 
holding after  the  Restoration  differed  decidedly  from 
that  of  the  old  days.  D'Avenant  and  Killigrew  held  the 
monopoly  of  the  stage,  and  in  their  theatres  the  old  divi- 
sion of  receipts  between  actor-sharers  and  housekeepers 
was  done  away  with.  In  1661,  when  D'Avenant's  com- 
pany moved  into  its  new  house  at  Lincoln's  Inn  Fields, 
the  total  daily  receipts,  less  current  expenses,  were  di- 
vided into  fifteen  shares,  of  which  ten  were  assigned  to  the 
proprietor  for  his  "pains  and  expenses"  in  organizing  the 
company,  and  to  enable  him  to  pay  rent,  provide  "habits, 
properties,  and  scenes,"  and  "maintain  all  the  women 
that  are  to  perform  or  represent  women's  parts."  ^  In  the 

1  Malone,  III,  175.   Cf.  Lowe,  Betterton,  pp.  82-84. 


THE  PLAYWRIGHTS  33 

old  days  all  these  responsibilities  had  rested  not  with  the 
housekeepers  but  with  the  company.  Now  the  proprietor 
ruled  like  an  absolute  monarch,  and  the  company  was 
content  to  recognize  his  authority  and  to  accept  the  re- 
maining five  shares  for  its  part.  At  the  same  time  Killi- 
grew,  who  had  less  money  to  invest  than  D'Avenant,  was 
satisfied  with  2f  shares  of  the  I2f  into  which  the  receipts 
of  the  King's  Men  were  divided.  Some  years  before  that 
company  made  its  complaint  against  Dryden,  the  annual 
income  of  its  shares  was  independently  estimated  ^  at  £200 
or  £250  each,  so  that  his  holding  may  well  have  brought 
him  the  £300  spoken  of  by  the  company.  But  Dryden 
and  other  playwrights  who  held  shares  were  to  discover 
all  too  soon  that,  —  what  with  fires,  political  disturb- 
ances, and  the  general  uncertainties  of  the  time,  —  such 
holdings  were  assets  of  very  doubtful  value.  Colley  Gib- 
ber was  of  the  next  generation,  and  he  owed  his  own  rich 
share  in  the  prosperous  dividends  of  Drury  Lane  not  to 
his  plays  but  to  his  acting  and  his  astute  management. 
He  tell  us,  however,  of  earlier  dramatists  whose  situation 
somewhat  resembled  that  of  Dryden.  In  1 695  Betterton's 
company  opened  their  new  theatre  in  Lincoln's  Inn 
Fields  with  Gongreve's  Love  for  Love^  Gongreve,  accord- 
ing to  Gibber,  "was  then  in  such  high  Reputation  as  an 
Author,  that  besides  his  Profits  from  this  Play,  they  of- 
fered him  a  whole  Share  with  them,  which  he  accepted;  in 
consideration  of  which  he  oblig'd  himself,  if  his  health 
permitted,  to  give  them  one  new  Play  every  Year."  ^ 
Gongreve's  health  or  inclination  did  not  permit  him  to 
produce  his  next  play.  The  Mourning  Bride,  until  1697. 
Apparently,  however,  he  maintained  friendly  relations 
with  the  company  meanwhile,  and  when  it  ran  upon  the 
rocks  in  1704,  he  and  another  distinguished  playwright 

1  Malone,  III,  172-174. 

2  On  the  history  of  the  companies  between  1 660  and  1 695  see  below,  pp.  1 2 1  ff. 

3  Apology,  \,  197. 


34  SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

and  man  of  the  world,  Sir  John  Vanbrugh,  undertook  its 
management.  "Mr.  Betterton,"  says  Downes,  "assign'd 
his  License,  and  his  whole  Company  over  to  Captain 
Vantbrugg,"  but  he  adds  that  before  the  autumn  of  1706 
the  company  was  once  more  all  but  bankrupt.^  Cibber 
contributes  parallel  evidence.  "The  Stage  was  in  such 
Confusion,"  he  writes,  "and  its  Affairs  in  such  Distress, 
that  Sir  John  Vanbrugh  and  Mr.  Congreve,  after  they 
had  held  it  about  one  Year,  threw  up  the  Menagement  of 
it  as  an  unprofitable  Post."  2 

Among  the  playwrights  who  held  theatrical  shares  was 
also  Dryden's  inveterate  enemy,  Thomas  Shadwell.  In 
his  will,3  executed  in  1690,  the  "true-blue  Protestant 
poet,"  left  his  wife  the  bulk  of  his  estate,  including  "the 
Rent  I  purchased  .  .  .  issueing  out  of  the  Daily  profitts 
of  the  .  .  .  Theatre"  in  "Dorset  Gardens,*  alias  Salisbury 
Court  in  London."  Unfortunately  this  share  proved  but 
a  poor  resource  to  Mrs.  Shadwell.  In  1709  she  and  some 
twenty  other  persons  complained  that,  after  making 
heavy  additional  investments,  they  had  drawn  a  total 
of  £1,000  a  year  from  1682  to  1695,  after  which  time 
"they  became  yearly  considerable  losers."  Mrs.  Shad- 
well's  share,  with  others,  was  in  the  course  of  time  ab- 
sorbed by  Cibber's  old  enemy,  Christopher  Rich,  a 
shrewd  and  unscrupulous  lawyer,  who  gradually  won  sole 
control  by  consistently  neglecting  to  pay  dividends  to 
other  shareholders  and  by  acquiring  their  property  at 
ridiculous  figures  when  they  tired  of  litigation.^ 

The  tale  of  Rich's  ultimate  discomfiture  must  await 
its  turn.  Here  it  is  in  order  to  add,  rather,  that  while  Cib- 
ber was  in  his  glory,  he  and  his  fellow  managers  were  glad 

'  Roscius  AnglicanuSy  pp.  47-48,  50. 

*  Apology,  I,  284;  cf.  I,  320,  326. 

^  Notes  and  Queries,  8th  Series,  IV,  109-110. 
<  See  below,  pp,  213,  217. 

*  Apology,  II,  8,  98-99;  Fitzgerald,  New  History  oj  the  English  Stage,  I, 
271-272. 


ifi^f<:-A 


ill,  ^ 


THE  PLAYWRIGHTS  3^ 

to  form  a  partnership  with  still  another  playwright  who 
—  like  Gibber  and  Vanbrugh  —  was  not  merely  a  play- 
wright. I  shall  show  presently  that  Sir  Richard  Steele, 
by  his  genial  puffing  of  the  actors  even  more  than  by  his 
own  plays,  richly  earned  the  £700  to  £1000  a  year  that  he 
drew  as  joint  patentee  of  Drury  Lane  for  some  years  after 
1714.^  Meanwhile,  two  names  remain  to  be  added  to  our 
list  of  playwright-sharers,  and  these,  also,  we  shall  meet 
again  and  again  later.  Garrick,  as  every  one  knows,  found 
time  to  write  plays  of  his  own,  besides  fulfilling  his  duties 
as  actor  and  manager;  and  Sheridan,  when  (in  1776)  he 
succeeded  Garrick  at  Drury  Lane,  had  already  made  his 
mark  by  writing  The  Rivals  and  The  Duenna  for  Covent 
Garden. 

A  crowded  century  stretches  between  Dryden  and 
Sheridan,  and  it  is  time  to  see  how  the  playwrights  who 
held  no  shares  fared  during  this  period.  I  have  already 
stated  that  the  proceeds  of  their  benefits  came  to  be  the 
chief  part  of  their  income,  and  I  would  add  here  that  in 
the  course  of  time  another  appreciable  item  developed: 
namely,  the  sums  paid  them  by  publishers  for  the  copy- 
rights of  their  plays.  I  think  it  is  almost  certain  that  the 
Elizabethans'  custom  of  selling  their  plays  outright  to  the 
managers  for  a  flat  purchase  price,  lapsed  with  the  Res- 
toration, though  Mr.  Percy  Fitzgerald  suggests  that  it 
survived.  Dryden,  he  writes,-  "received  about  £25  for 
each  piece  and  £70  for  his  benefit,"  —  an  arrangement 
which  certainly  did  not  hold  while  he  was  a  sharer  with 
the  King's  Men,  if  we  may  judge  by  their  statement. 
And  Dryden 's  own  word  on  the  subject  does  not  support 
Fitzgerald,  even  though  it  is  not  very  conclusive  in  and 
by  itself.  We  know  only  that  shortly  before  his  death  the 
poet  wrote  his  sons  that  the  play  on  which  he  was  then 
engaged  would  cost  him  "six  weeks'  study,  with  the  prob- 

^  Apology,  II,  162-165,  '^1'^~'^1S-   S^^  below,  pp.  131,  267  fF. 
2  II,  23. 


36  SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

able  benefit  of  an  hundred  pounds."  ^  Professor  Cross,  in 
his  recent  work  on  Fielding,  appears  to  suggest  that  the 
old  custom  was  still  alive  in  1734,  for  he  says  that  "  a  good 
farce  was  then  valued  at  forty  or  fifty  pounds,  and  this 
sum  might  be  increased  by  numerous  benefit  nights  in 
which  the  author  received  all  the  profits  after  the  players 
were  paid."  ^  But  the  great  body  of  allusion  in  the  pro- 
logues and  epilogues  of  the  time,  together  with  the  mem- 
oirs and  other  records  of  dramatists  and  managers, 
indicates  that,  after  the  Restoration,  payment  was  made 
by  the  proceeds  of  benefits,  not  (as  of  old)  by  a  flat  pur- 
chase price.3 

Prior,  in  his  Satire  upon  the  Poets  (1707),  notes  that 
there  were  few  of  them 

Blest  enough  to  write  a  Play 
Without  the  hungry  hopes  of  kind  third  Day, 

and  goes  on  to  speak  of  "Otway,  the  Hope,  the  Sorrow  of 
our  Age,"  who 

Had  of  s  Wants  much  earlier  dy'd, 
Had  not  kind  Banker  Betterton  supply'd, 
And  took  for  Pawn  the  Embryo  of  a  Play, 
Till  he  could  pay  himself  the  next  third  Day.* 

Lee,  though  he  had  a  pension  (i.  e.,  a  salary)  from  the 
King's  Players,  puts  the  emphasis  in  the  same  place.  In 
his  Prologue  to  Constantine  the  Great  (1684),  he  laments 
the  time-honored  wretchedness  of  the  poets,  —  "how 
Spenser  starv'd,  how  Cowley  mourn'd,"  —  pays  his  re- 
spects to 

1  September  3,  1697  {Works,  Scott-Saintsbury  ed.,  XVIII,  133-134).  It 
was  a  revision  of  Sir  Robert  Howard's  Conquest  of  China. 

2  History  oj  Henry  Fielding,  I,  i6o. 

^  I  know  of  but  one  bit  of  possible  evidence  against  this  view,  —  Pope's 
remark  concerning  Dryden  in  Spence's  Anecdotes,  p.  262:  "In  those  days  ten 
broad  pieces  was  the  usual  highest  price  for  a  play:  and  if  they  got  fifty  pounds 
more  in  the  acting,  it  was  reckoned  very  well."  But  the  Anecdotes,  valuable 
as  they  are,  are  not  reliable  as  to  details. 

*  Cf.  Lowe's  Betterton,  p.  120. 


THE  PLAYWRIGHTS  37 

Retailers  of  dull  third-day  Plays, 

That  starve  out  three-score  Years  in  hopes  of  Bays, 

and  exhorts  fond  parents  to  restrain  their  sons  by  all  pos- 
sible means  from  writing  verse,  until  after  they  have 
learned  to  be  dull!  Otway,  in  his  Epilogue  to  Cuius 
Marius  (1680)  was  somewhat  more  cheerful.  "Which 
amongst  you,"  he  asks  the  poets, 

is  there  to  be  found 
Will  take  his  third  Day's  Pawn  for  fifty  Pound  ? 

Some  of  them,  it  appears,  would  have  been  wiser  had 
they  done  so.  The  current  expenses  or  "house  charges" 
of  the  theatres,  —  which  were  regularly  deducted  from 
the  gross  receipts  on  poets'  nights,  —  went  up  by  leaps 
and  bounds  in  the  course  of  time.  They  were  over  £30 
about  1700,  £80  to  £90  by  1760,  £100  twenty-five  years 
later,  and  £160  before  1800.^  Gildon  gives  a  pathetic  ac- 
count, dialogue-wise,  of  one  poor  author  who  had  not 
much  left  after  paying  all  the  bills.  Sullen,  a  gentleman, 
is  telling  the  story: 

The  Devil  on't  was,  he  was  oblig'd  to  treat  every  one  of  his 
Players  all  the  while  it  [the  piece]  was  in  Rehearsal,  to  keep 
*em  in  study,  and  in  that  exploit  it  cost  him  in  Coach  hire  and 
Wine  near  ten  Pounds  .  .  .  His  Third  Day  came  .  .  .  and  I 
think  I  never  saw  better  Boxes;  ...  his  Friends  joy'd  him 
when  't  was  over,  and  he  thought  he  had  now  the  Indes  to  re- 
ceive:   Pay-day  came,  and  what  do  you  think  he  received? 

The  house  was  full, — so  Sullen  assures  us, — and  Chagrin, 
the  critic  in  the  dialogue,  guesses  seventy  pounds  as  a 
minimum,  for  he  knows  "their  way  of  bringing  in  their 
Bills  of  Charges." 

Sullen.  He  received  but  fifteen  pounds. 
Critick.     'Sdeath!    How   could    that  be?     the   Ordinary 
Charge  is  about  four  and  thirty  Pounds  a  Day. 

^  See  Davies,  I,  320;  Genest,  III,  403;  Statement  of  the  Differences  Sub- 
sisting between  the  Proprietors  and  Performers  of  the  Theatre-Royal,  Covent 
Garden  (1800);  and  quotation  immediately  below. 


38  SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

Sullen.  But  the  extraordinary  (when  they  please  to  make  it 
so)  is  very  extraordinary,  without  any  Compass.  They 
brought  him  Bills  for  Gloves,  for  Chocolet,  for  Snuff;  this 
Singer  begg'd  a  Guinea,  that  Dancer  the  same;  one  Actor 
wish'd  him  joy,  and  ask'd  how  he  lik'd  his  Performance  .  .  . 
and  the  next  Morning  away  flies  another  Guinea.^ 

Some  of  this  miscellaneous  outlay  was  required  because 
the  author  was  rather  closer  to  the  players  than  he  usually 
is  to-day.  It  was  his  well-recognized  prerogative  to  cast 
the  parts.  Thus,  Mrs.  Behn  gave  Otway  his  first  —  and 
last  —  part  (the  King  in  The  Jealous  Bridegroom) ;  Rowe 
furthered  the  career  of  the  great  Booth  by  giving  him  the 
leading  part  in  The  Ambitious  Stepmother-^  and  Dr.  Young 
created  an  uproar  behind  the  scenes  at  Drury  Lane  in 
1753  by  assigning  the  chief  role  in  The  Brothers  to  Mrs. 
Bellamy  when  Garrick  wanted  it  for  Mrs.  Pritchard.^ 
But  this  privilege  could  hardly  have  compensated  a 
needy  playwright  for  a  meagre  third  day!  "My  author's 
profits  were  but  16/.,"  writes  John  O'Keeffe  concerning 
his  Alfred,  a  play  produced  at  the  Haymarket  in  1795.* 
And  Frederick  Reynolds's  Eloisa,  nine  years  earlier,  had 
brought  him  but  £8,  though  that  tragedy  was  supported 
on  its  first  night  by  an  uproarious  company  of  his  friends 
and  well-wishers.  When  Reynolds  on  the  night  of  his 
benefit  was  introduced  to  the  celebrated  old  actor  Charles 
Macklin  as  the  successful  author  of  two  tragedies,  he 
somewhat  ruefully  remarked  that  the  £8  he  had  just  re- 
ceived were  the  sum  total  of  his  dramatic  earnings  up  to 
that  point.  "And  very  good  pay  too,  sir,"  repHed  Mack- 
lin. "So  go  home  and  write  two  more  tragedies,  and  if 
you  gain  four  pounds  by  each  of  them,  why,  young  man, 
the  author  of  Paradise  Lost  will  be  a  fool  to  you."  Rey- 
nolds, however,  did  not  act  upon  Macklin 's  advice,  for  he 

^  Comparison  between  the  Stages,  1702,  pp.  9-10;  cf.  Fitzgerald,  I,  222-223. 
^  Downes,  p.  34;  Victor,  Life  of  Booth,  p.  7;  Doran,  Annals,  ed.  1865,  I, 
392;  cf.  O'Keeffe,  Recollections,  I,  365.  ^  Recollections,  II,  346. 


THE  PLAYWRIGHTS  39 

states  that  Eloisa  ended  his  ''tragic  career."  ^  But  he  did 
write  scores  of  comedies  thereafter.  Indeed,  his  sad  ex- 
perience, and  O'Keeffe's,  were  not  typical,  after  all. 

The  playwrights  of  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury were  in  much  better  case  than  those  of  earlier  times, 
for  they  frequently  had  the  proceeds  of  two  or  three  bene- 
fits. These,  however,  did  not  always  average  the  fifty 
pounds  of  which  Otway  speaks,  —  Aaron  Hill's  Merope 
(acted  in  1749),  ^^^  example,  bringing  him  but  thrice  that 
sum  in  three  benefits.-  Even  so,  dramatic  poesy  was 
more  profitable  than  of  yore.  For  —  to  return  to  Dryden 
and  the  Restoration  —  we  can  call  upon  Dean  Lockier 
( 1 668-1 740)  to  testify  that  the  older  dramatists  might 
sometimes  have  found  a  payment  of  fifty  pounds  in  hand 
much  more  advantageous  than  the  elusive  hopes  of  a 
crowded  benefit.  The  reason  was  simply  that  a  good 
many  plays  did  not  live  to  see  a  third  night.  The  Dean's 
evidence  takes  the  form  of  an  anecdote: 

In  one  of  Dryden's  plays  there  was  this  line,  which  the 
actress  endeavoured  to  speak  in  as  moving  and  affecting  a 
tone  as  she  could: 

"My  wound  is  great,  because  it  is  so  small!", — 

and  then  she  paused,  and  looked  very  much  distressed.  The 
Duke  of  Buckingham,  who  was  in  one  of  the  boxes,  rose  from 
his  seat,  and  added,  in  a  loud  ridiculing  voice: 

"Then  'twould  be  greater  were  it  none  at  all!" 

which  had  so  strong  an  effect  on  the  audience  (who  before 
were  not  very  well  pleased  with  the  play)  that  they  hissed  the 
poor  woman  off  the  stage;  would  never  bear  her  appearance  in 
the  rest  of  her  part:  and  (as  this  was  the  second  time  only  of 
the  play's  appearance)  made  Dryden  lose  his  benefit  night.^ 

^  Reynolds,  Lije  and  Times,  1,304,312-313,  315,  321-325;  Oulton,  I,  162. 
His  Werter  had  been  produced  at  Bath  and  Bristol  in  1785  and  in  London  in 
1786,  but  the  author  gained  only  the  vox  populi  by  it. 

2  £148  {Works,  1754,  II,  370). 

^  Spence's  Anecdotes,  pp.  61-62.    Montague  Summers  in  his  edition 


40  SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

Indeed,  Otway  himself  probably  exceeded  but  once  or 
twice  the  fifty-pound  mark  he  set  up  with  such  an  appear- 
ance of  cheerfulness,  and  his  poverty  and  Lee's  madness 
became  a  proverbial  reproach  to  the  memory  of  their 
neglectful  contemporaries.  Gildon,  for  one,  complained 
again  and  again  of  the  niggardly  rewards  genius  had  in 
those  days.  "  I  believe,"  he  says,  "  by  a  fair  computation, 
that  Mithridates,  Theodosius^  Alexander  the  greaty  and 
Hannibal,  have  gain'd  the  several  actors  that  have  suc- 
ceeded each  other  not  less  than  fifty  thousand  pounds, 
and  yet  the  author  scarce  got  one  hundred  pounds  a 
piece  for  his  labour,  and  dy'd  at  last  in  the  very  street; 
whereas  if  our  English  great  men,  who  had  power  to  have 
done  it,  had  fix'd  and  order'd  that  the  Poet  should  have 
receiv'd  a  reasonable  share  of  the  profits  of  his  plays  as 
long  as  they  were  acted  in  his  time,  as  it  is  in  France,  he 
had  had  a  comfortable  maintainance  from  his  own  la- 
bours, and  escap'd  that  miserable  fate  that  befel  him." 
And  Otway,  he  adds,  "had  but  a  hundred  pounds  apiece 
for  his  Orphan  and  Venice  Preservd,  tho'  the  players, 
reckoning  down  to  this  time,  have  not  got  less  than 
twenty  thousand  pounds  by  them.  The  same  may  be 
said  of  Mr.  Dryden's  Spanish  Frier''  In  conclusion, 
Gildon  holds  that  either  "encouragement  is  not  the  thing 
that  nourishes  and  makes  poetry  flourish,  or  else  that  our 
dramatick  genius  is  quite  extinct."  According  to  Gildon, 
the  meanest  scribblers  of  his  day  and  generation  "made 
from  three  and  four  hundred  pounds  to  fifteen  hundred 
for  one  Tragedy  or  Comedy;  which,  however,  never 
reach'd  a  second  season."  ^ 

(1914)  of  The  Rehearsal  (pp.  vii-viii),  holds  that  this  anecdote  is  highly 
"suspicious  and  unlikely."  Granting  that  no  evidence  to  confirm  the 
episode  has  been  found,  it  is  none  the  less  clear  that  many  plays  failed 
because  of  the  unfriendliness  of  their  first  audiences. 

^  The  Laws  oj  Poetry,  1721 ,  pp.  37-38.  Gildon's  own  plays  were  unsuccess- 
ful, and  his  findings  concerning  his  immediate  contemporaries  must  be  dis- 
counted. 


THE  PLAYWRIGHTS  41 

Otway,  Lee,  and  Dryden  apparently  never  learned  the 
art  of  capitalizing  their  success.  Some  of  their  contem- 
poraries outdid  them  in  this  respect.  Downes,  for  ex- 
ample, reports  that  Shadwell  received  £130  for  his  third 
day  of  The  Squire  of  Alsatia^  acted  at  Drury  Lane  in 
1688.  Prices  were  not  raised  on  this  occasion,  as  they 
frequently  came  to  be  at  other  benefits,  and  the  sum  real- 
ized was  (again  according  to  Downes)  "the  greatest 
Receipt  they  ever  had  at  that  House  at  single  Prizes,"  — 
a  noteworthy  tribute  to  the  popularity  of  the  play;  ^  and 
Shadwell  himself  affirms  that  "the  House  was  never  so 
full  since  it  was  built,  as  upon  the  third  Day  of  this  Play; 
and  vast  Numbers  went  away,  that  could  not  be  admit- 
ted." ^  But  other  dramatists  received  much  larger  sums 
very  soon  after.  Thomas  Southerne,  in  particular,  knew 
how  to  get  the  most  profit  for  his  pains,  —  as  witness 
Malone's  quotation  ^  from  a  letter  of  1694  which  tells  of 
the  great  success  scored  by  The  Fatal  Marriage-.  "Never 
was  poet  better  rewarded  or  incouraged  by  the  town;  for 
besides  an  extraordinary  full  house,  which  brought  him 
about  140/.,  50  noblemen  .  .  .  gave  him  guineas  apiece,* 
and  the  printer  36/.  for  his  copy."  Yet  other  plays  of 
Sou  theme's  were  even  more  profitable,  for  he  is  reported 
to  have  told  Dryden  that  he  cleared  £700  by  a  later 
piece."  He  did  not,  however,  realize  such  a  sum  as  this 
from  one  benefit.  Part  of  it  came  from  the  sale  of  his 
copyright,  an  increasingly  valuable  source  of  income  of 
which  I  shall  have  more  to  say  in  a  moment.  Nor  did  he 
neglect  other  means  of  making  the  most  of  his  work.  As 
he  himself  frankly  admits  in  the  flattering  dedication  of 
his  Maid's  Last  Prayer  (1693),  poetry  was  his  "  business," 

^  Roscius  /inglicanus,  p.  41. 
^  Dedication. 

3    III,  163. 

*  Tliat  is  to  say,  personal  gifts.  See  below,  pp.  44,  88-90. 
^  Sometime  before  1700,  the  date  of  Dryden's  death.    See  Southerne's 
Plays,  ed.  T.  Evans,  1774,  I,  5. 


42  SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

and  his  excuse  for  writing  a  play  once  a  year  is  that  he 
had  "nothing  else  to  do."  His  business  flourished  accord- 
ing to  his  merits. 

Southerne  is  the  first  playwright  who  is  definitely 
known  to  have  had  two  benefits  for  a  new  play.  In  the 
dedication  to  his  Sir  Anthony  Love  (1691)  our  shrewd 
playwright  thanked  the  public  (and  particularly  the 
ladies)  for  promoting  his  interest  "on  those  days  chiefly 
(the  third  and  sixth)  when  I  had  the  tenderest  relation  to 
the  welfare  of  my  play."  Malone  ^  adds  that  Farquhar 
had  three  benefits  for  his  Constant  Couple  in  1700,  but 
that  "the  profit  of  three  representations  did  not  become 
the  established  right  of  authors  till  after  the  year  1720." 
As  regards  Farquhar's  case,  a  contemporary  playbill  has  it 
>C  that  he  was_allowed  his  third  benefit  on  July  13,  1 7oo^in 
consideration  of  the  great  success  of  his  play,  "  and  in  an^ 
swer  to  a^scandalous  Prologue  spoken^  against  Itl-atJJie 
otheFliouse."  2  Thereafter,  three  benefits  or  even  more 
were  f requen tly  granted,  but  the  playwrights  really  did 
not  gain  an  "established  right"  to  the  extra  benefits  even 
long  after  1720.  Of  course,  if  a  play  died  early,  the  pros- 
pect of  further  benefits  was  automatically  cut  off.  If  it 
succeeded,  the  author  did  often  get  the  extra  nights.  Dr. 
Johnson,  for  example,  had  his  three  benefits  when  Gar- 
rick  produced  Irene  in  1749,^  and  Gay  had  had  five  when 
The  Beggar  s  Opera  scored  its  first  phenomenal  run  of 
sixty-two  nights  in  1728.'*  But  Mrs.  Sheridan's  Discovery 
was  produced  at  Drury  Lane  in  1763  on  the  specific  un- 
derstanding that  the  author  was  to  have  but  two  bene- 
fits,^ and  O'Keeffe's  Recollections  indicates  very  clearly 

1  III,  158-159.  2  Genest,  II,  i66. 

3  They  netted  him  £195,  ']s.  for  the  three  (Fitzgerald,  II,  163,  from  R.  J. 
Smith's  Collection  oj  Materiel  towards  an  History  oj  the  English  Stage,  vol. 
V,  British  Museum). 

^  C.  E.  Pearce,  Polly  Peachum,  pp.  184-185,  191-192.  Gay's  profits  from 
his  four  benefits  were  £857,  \os. 

*  Davies,  Lije  oJ  Garrick,  I,  337. 


THE  PLAYWRIGHTS  43 

that  there  was  no  fixed  rule  as  to  the  number  of  nights  to 
which  an  author  was  entitled  in  the  decades  immediately 
following.  O'Keeffe  sold  several  of  his  plays  with  the 
understanding  that  he  was  to  have  three  benefits,  while 
for  a  good  many  others,  equally  successful,  he  expected 
and  received  but  one.^  Many  of  the  playwrights  of  this 
rather  pedestrian  era  wrote  memoirs  which  are  much 
more  interesting  than  their  plays.  These  records  throw 
considerable  light  upon  managerial  methods  in  the  late 
eighteenth  century,  and  they  have  not  hitherto  been 
fully  used.  I  shall  return  to  them,  but  first  I  have  a  word 
to  add  concerning  earlier  times. 

Some  men  there  have  always  been  with  the  means  and 
the  inclination  to  woo  the  muses  for  their  own  sake. 
Some  authors  went  so  far  as  to  help  the  players  by  con- 
tributing liberally  towards  the  expenses  of  production, 
and  others  were  quite  willing  —  if  only  they  might  see 
their  work  on  the  boards  —  to  resign  their  benefits,  or 
perhaps  to  apply  them  to  a  charitable  purpose,  as  did 
Lillo  in  1740  by  advertising  his  third  night  "for  the  bene- 
fit of  my  poor  relations."  2  But  since  most  of  them  needed 
all  the  money  they  could  get,  it  was  natural  that  they  not 
only  retained  their  benefits  but  did  what  they  could  to 
attract  the  public  to  them. 

Accordingly,  one  can  do  no  less  than  applaud  the  enter- 
prise of  Tom  D'Urfey,  who  advertised  that  for  the  oc- 
casion of  a  benefit  he  had  in  1717  "a  new  Oration  on 
several  heads,  for  the  entertainment  of  the  Court  and  the 
audience  his  friends,"  would  be  "spoken  by  himself  on 
the  stage,"  3  —  and  that  of  Fielding,  who  was  in  the 
habit  of  adding  new  songs  to  his  plays  when  his  benefit 
was  on.  Less  admirable  was  another  device  of  Fielding's, 
which  incidentally  gave  him  the  opportunity  to  laugh  at 
one  of  his  pet  aversions  —  the  laureate.    In  1736  "to 

^  Recollections,  II,  2,  6,  336,  etc, 

*  Doran,  II,  23i-  ^  Genest,  II,  601. 


44  SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

give  eclat"  to  his  benefit  performance  of  Pasquin,  he 
imported  Mrs.  Charke,  Colley  Gibber's  daughter  and 
a  capital  male  impersonator,  to  ridicule  her  father's 
odes.^ 

More  important  than  these  "added  attractions"  and 
probably  more  significant  in  the  final  counting  of  the 
gains,  was  another  type  of  enterprise  undertaken  by  the 
playwrights  in  connection  with  their  benefits.  We  found 
that  at  Southerne's  benefit  in  1694  fifty  noblemen  gave 
him  "guineas  apiece."  Now  Southerne,  as  his  editor 
justly  remarks,  was  an  "exact  economist,"  and  since  per- 
sonal solicitation  of  the  favor  and  the  guineas  of  the 
nobility  might  be  counted  on  to  swell  his  receipts,  he 
frankly  exploited  this  resource  to  the  limit.  "The  favour 
of  great  men  is  the  poet's  inheritance,"  he  wrote  in  one  of 
his  dedications,^  and  he  was  not  the  man  to  neglect  or 
waste  his  inheritance.  Later  we  shall  see  that  the  players 
did  not  do  so  either.  Meanwhile  it  should  be  noted  that 
other  playwrights  likewise  waited  upon  the  quality. 
Gibber  himself  declares  that  Pope  sent  him  four  unsolic- 
ited guineas,  in  17 17,  for  four  tickets  for  the  author's  day 
of  The  Non-Juror"  (before  Gibber  became  the  hero  of  the 
Dunciad);^  but  in  1723,  Bickerstaffe,  who,  "being  con- 
fined to  his  bed  by  his  lameness,"  had  "nobody  to  wait  on 
the  quality,"  advertised  his  regrets  and  hoped  they  would 
support  his  benefit  none  the  less.^  Southerne,  an  ex- 
soldier  with  good  connections,  merely  led  the  way,  and  in 
so  doing  probably  reaped  a  better  harvest  than  the  rest. 
He  "was  much  respected  by  persons  of  distinction,"  says 
his  editor,^  "who  in  return  for  his  tickets  usually  made 
him  great  presents." 

Malone  (usually  one  of  the  most  trustworthy  and  al- 
ways one  of  the  most  admirable  of  scholars)  makes  a 

^  Cross,  Fielding,  I,  187-188.  '  Letter  to  Mr.  Pope,  1742,  p.  12. 

2  To  Oroonoko  (1699).  ■*  Doran,  II,  334. 

^  Evans,  Southerne's  Plays,  1774,  vol.  I. 


THE  PLAYWRIGHTS  45 

statement  in  this  connection  which  is  not  correct.  "To 
the  honour  of  Mr.  Addison,"  he  writes,  "it  should  be  re- 
membered that  he  first  discontinued  the  ancient,  but 
humihating,  practice  of  distributing  tickets  and  soHciting 
company  to  attend  at  the  theatre  on  the  poet's  nights."  ^ 
Presumably  Malone  refers  to  the  fact  that  Addison,  far 
from  soliciting  patronage  for  the  benefits  he  might  have 
claimed  when  Cato  was  produced  at  Drury  Lane  in  17 13, 
remitted  all  his  rights  to  the  managers,  who,  according  to 
Colley  Cibber,  invested  the  sum  thus  saved  them  in  elab- 
orate mountings  for  the  play .2  But  we  have  seen  that 
D'Urfey,  some  years  after  the  production  of  Cato,  took 
energetic  steps  to  solicit  patronage  for  his  benefit,  and  it 
seems  likely  that  personal  solicitation  by  other  play- 
wrights went  on  for  some  time  after.  Certainly  the 
practice  was  continued  by  the  actors  —  even  by  very 
distinguished  actors  —  until  almost  the  end  of  the  cen- 
tury.^ 

Addison  was  neither  the  first  nor  the  last  author  who 
remitted  his  charges  to  the  management.  Indeed,  for 
generations  before  Addison's  time,  the  dramatists  who  had 
to  write  for  pence  as  well  as  praise  had  bitterly  resented 
the  unfair  competition  of  lords  and  gentlemen  who 
wanted  fame  but  not  money.  Sir  John  Vanbrugh,  a  gen- 
erous patron  of  all  things  dramatic,  as  well  as  a  play- 
wright who  deserves  more  than  his  present  fame,  gave 
The  Relapse  to  the  Drury  Lane  company  in  1696,  and 
The  Provoked  Wife  to  Betterton  at  Lincoln's  Inn  Fields 
the  next  year.*  And  he  was  merely  continuing  a  very  old 
tradition,  which  runs  back  at  least  to  Shakspere's  time. 
As  early  as  1599  one  George  Fenner  wrote  to  a  friend  in 
Venice  that  "our  Earle  of  Darby  is  busye  in  penning  com- 

1  III,  159.  2  Apology,  II,  129. 

^  Genest,  VI,  461,  520;  Doran,  II,  225.   See  below,  pp.  88-90. 
*  Gibber's  Apology,  I,  217-218  and  note.    The  prologue  to  Vanbrugh's 
Confederacy  alludes  to  the  fact  that  the  author  "writ  for  praise"  only. 


46  SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

medyes  for  the  commoun  players,"  ^  and  between  1637 
and  1639  Sir  John  Suckling  wrote  three  plays  for  the 
court  and  the  Blackfriars.  The  production  of  one  of  these 
pieces,  entitled  Aglaura,  together  with  that  of  another  by 
still  another  gentleman,  is  described  in  one  of  the  Straf- 
ford Letters  of  1638:  "Two  of  the  King's  Servants, 
Privy-Chamber  Men  both,  have  writ  each  of  them  a 
Play,  Sir  John  Sutlin  and  Will.  Barclay,  which  have  been 
acted  in  Court,  and  at  the  Black  Friars,  with  much  Ap- 
plause. Sutlin's  Play  cost  three  or  four  hundred  Pounds 
setting  out,  eight  or  ten  Suits  of  new  Cloaths  he  gave  the 
Players;  an  unheard  of  Prodigality,"  2 

Derby  and  Suckling  had  many  successors.  Between 
1660  and  1700,  writes  Dr.  Doran,  "the  noble  gentlemen, 
the  amateur  rather  than  professional  poets,  .  .  .  may  be 
reckoned  at  a  dozen  and  a  half,  from  dukes  to  knights," 
and  this  is  a  moderate  estimate.  Among  them  were  some 
of  the  best  wits  of  the  time,  —  such  men  as  Rochester  and 
Buckingham,  Sir  John  Denham,  Sir  Robert  Howard,  the 
Earl  of  Bristol,  and  the  Earl  of  Orrery,  —  and  some,  also, 
of  decidedly  smaller  calibre.  Sir  Ludovick  Carlile,  for 
example,  "the  old  gentleman  of  the  bows  to  Charles  I," 
offered  the  players  his  translation  of  Corneille's  HeracliuSy 
only  to  have  it  returned  on  his  hands. ^ 

One  case,  indeed,  is  recorded  of  a  very  successful  play 
which,  according  to  Downes,*  was  translated  from  Mo- 
liere  by  a  great  nobleman,  and  by  him  given  not  to  the 
players  but  to  Dryden,  who  "polished"  it  for  the  stage. 
The  play  was  Sir  Martin  Mar-all  (1667),  and  the  trans- 
lator the  Duke  of  Newcastle.  But  as  a  rule  the  actors 
rather  than  the  playwrights  profited  by  such  gifts,  and 
this  in  the  eighteenth  century  as  well  as  in  earlier  times. 

^  Calendar  oj  State  Papers,  Domestic,  i§g8-i6oT,  p.  227;  Greenstreet,  New 
Shakspere  Society  Transactions,  1887-92,  p.  269. 

2  Strafford's  Letters,  1737,  II,  150. 

3  Doran,  I,  129,  138. 

*  Roscius  Anglicanus,  p.  28. 


THE  PLAYWRIGHTS  47 

In  the  year  1717,  for  example,  when  Sir  Thomas  Moore's 
Mangora,  King  of  the  Timbusians ^  was  in  preparation,  the 
lot  of  the  actors  was  made  tolerable  by  the  kind  Sir 
Thomas,  who  gave  them  "many  good  Dinners  and  Sup- 
pers during  the  Rehearsals."  Victor,  who  loves  to  chron- 
icle a  benevolent  deed,  thought  the  food  must  have  been 
very  welcome,  for  the  company  at  that  time  had  "got  but 
small  Encouragement  from  the  Public  ...  It  may 
justly  be  said,  their  Necessities  compelled  them  to  per- 
form this  strange  Tragedy."  He  observes  also  that  Aaron 
Hill,  in  his  prosperous  days,  gave  his  alteration  of  Shak- 
spere's  Henry  F  to  the  company  at  Drury  Lane,  "with 
Sets  of  Scenes  for  which,  to  my  knowledge  he  paid  two 
hundred  Pounds."  ^ 

In  the  year  1587  "a  zealous  Protestant"  complained  to 
Sir  Francis  Walsingham  that  money  which  might  relieve 
the  poor  was  being  shamelessly  wasted  upon  theatrical 
entertainments.  "Yf  needes  this  misschief  must  be  tol- 
lorated,"  he  added,  "whereat  no  doubt  the  Highest 
frownith,  yet  for  Codes  sake,  sir,  lett  every  stage  in  Lon- 
don pay  a  weekly  pention  to  the  pore,  that  ex  hoc  mala 
proveniat  aliquod  bonum."  ^  The  local  authorities  had 
similar  ideas,  and  so,  from  time  to  time  until  long  after 
the  Restoration,  the  players  were  required  to  pay  "  to  the 
vse  of  the  poore  in  hospitalles"  such  sums  as  were  as- 
sessed by  the  mayor  and  council.^  "The  devil,"  says 
Rendle,  "decHnes  to  be  put  down.  .  .  .  Accordingly  the 
vestry  resolves  that  he  shall  pay  tithes  —  a  good  worldly 
arrangement;  if  he  cannot  be  abolished,  make  him  pay."  * 
Young,  in  1753,  acted  on  a  somewhat  similar  principle, 
for  in  that  year  his  tragedy  of  The  Brothers  brought  him 

1  II,  144, 123. 

2  Halliwell-Phillipps,  Illustrations,  p.  io8. 

^  Order  of  1574  in  Hazlitt,  English  Drama  and  Stage,  p.  130;  cf.  Thorn- 
dike,  p.  238. 

*  The  Bankside,  p.  v  (Part  ii,  Harrison  s  England,  New  Shakspere  Society, 
Appendix). 


48  SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

£400,  which,  together  with  £600  from  his  own  pocket,  he 
straightway  turned  over  to  the  Society  for  the  Propaga- 
tion of  the  Gospel.^ 

Gentlemen  of  quite  another  cloth  were  equally  indus- 
trious, if  less  beneficent.  If  it  be  objected  that  George 
Warrington,  —  of  the  noble  family  of  the  Esmonds  in  Vir- 
ginia,—  who  wrote  for  Drury  Lane  a  tragedy  entitled 
Carpezan,  which  was  rejected  by  Garrick  and  put  on  at 
the  other  house  by  Rich,  and  a  second  tragedy  called 
Pocahontas^  which  failed  under  Garrick's  management,  — 
is  but  a  character  in  fiction,^  I  reply  by  reminding  my 
reader  of  a  thoroughly  matter-of-fact  contemporary  of 
George  Warrington's:  one  General  Burgoyne,  who  sought 
and  won  oblivion  for  his  American  misfortunes  in  the  fine 
successes  scored  by  his  several  musical  plays  in  London,^ 
The  worst  of  it  all  for  the  playwright  who  was  not  to 
gentility  born,  was  the  fact  that  theatre-goers  were  im- 
mensely taken  with  the  idea  of  patronizing  their  social 
betters.  Davies,^  for  example,  tells  of  a  play  in  1736 
which  was  tremendously  popular  while  it  was  believed  to 
be  the  work  of  a  great  unknown,  only  to  die  miserably 
when  it  was  discovered  to  be  the  work  of  a  mere  actor.^ 
In  short,  it  is  but  natural  that  humble  genius  lowly  born 
protested  against  the  scourge  of  greatness  thus  laid  upon 
it,  as  Nathaniel  Lee  did,  for  example,  in  his  Prologue  to 
Constantine  the  Great  (1684),  so  vigorously  that  I  dare  not 
quote  him  except  with  large  reservations: 

^  Victor,  II,  129-130;  Doran,  I,  392. 

^  The  Virginians^  Chapters  67,  68,  79,  80. 

2  Autobiography  oj  Mrs.  Delany,  V,  4,  n.;  O'KeefFe,  Recollections,  I,  374- 
375.  Prince  Hoare,  another  author  of  "agreeable  farces,"  served  also  as 
arbitrator  in  certain  theatrical  disputes  (Reynolds,  Life  and  Times,  II,  274- 

275)- 

*  Life  oj  Garrick,  II,  202-206.  The  play  was  Havard's  Charles  the  First. 

*  For  further  material  on  elegant  amateurs  as  playwrights,  see  The  Stage- 
Beaux  toss'd  in  a  Blanket  (Drury  Lane,  1704);  London  Journal,  January  12 
and  19,  1723;  Victor,  II,  1 60-1 61;  Reynolds's  comedies.  The  Dramatist  and 
Management;  Oulton,  II,  56-58;  O'Keeffe,  II,  337;  Thaler,  Modern  Language 
Notes  (June,  1921),  XXXVI,  338-341. 


THE  PLAYWRIGHTS  49 

Spite  of  his  State,  my  Lord  sometimes  descends, 

To  please  the  importunity  of  Friends.  .  .  . 

And,  though  he  sinks  with  his  Employs  of  State, 

Till  common  Sense  forsake  him,  he'll  —  translate.  .  .  . 

Therefore  all  ye  who  have  Male-Issue  born 

Under  the  starving  sign  of  Capricorn, 

Prevent  the  Malice  of  their  Stars  in  time. 

And  warn  them  early  from  the  Sin  of  Rhyme. 

It  would  seem  as  though  the  professional  dramatists 
of  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries  were  more 
seriously  troubled  than  their  predecessors  by  the  efforts 
of  noble  amateurs.  On  the  other  hand,  they  enjoyed  cer- 
tain additional  sources  of  revenue  which  had  scarcely 
been  tapped  in  Shakspere's  time.  Pope  apostrophized 
Southerne  as 

Tom,  whom  heav'n  sent  down  to  raise 
The  price  of  prologues  and  of  plays.  .  .  .^ 

And  so  he  did;  but  he  managed  the  second  part  of  this 
achievement  not  only  by  making  his  benefits  profitable, 
but  also  by  persuading  the  publishers  to  pay  him  sub- 
stantial sums  for  copyrights.  The  profits  derived  by 
Elizabethan  dramatists  from  the  publication  of  their 
work  were  quite  negligible  until  shortly  before  the  closing 
of  the  theatres.  Company  opposition  to  publication,  the 
absence  of  copyright  protection,  and  the  consequent 
pirating  of  texts,  perhaps  merely  a  tardy  realization  on 
the  part  of  the  playwrights  of  the  feasibility  of  exploiting 
their  work  off  the  stage  ^  —  all  these  things  together  ex- 
plain in  a  measure  why  so  good  a  man  of  business  as 
Shakspere  apparently  drew  no  profit  from  the  publication 
of  his  plays.  Yet  before  the  close  of  the  period  there  was  a 
large  market  for  playbooks,  which  sold  regularly  for  a 

'  To  Mr.  Thomas  Southern,  on  his  Birth-Day,  1742. 
2  Cf.  H.  R.  Shipherd,  Play-Publishing  in  Elizabethan  Times,  Publications 
Modern  Language  Association  of  America,  XXXIV,  580  fF. 


so  SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

testern  or  sixpence.^  "Above  forty  thousand  Play-books " 
were  "printed  within  these  two  yeares,"  wrote  Prynne  in 
1633/  "they  being  more  vendible  than  the  choycest  Ser- 
mons." Heywood  and  Brome  may  have  had  some  in- 
come from  the  plays  they  printed  in  Prynne's  time,  and 
it  is  possible  that  Jonson's  folio  brought  him  some  finan- 
cial return,  but  no  evidence  is  available. 

There  is,  on  the  other  hand,  ample  evidence  to  show 
that  the  pirating  of  plays  went  merrily  on  through  the 
seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries,  even  after  the 
publishers  had  begun  to  pay  decent  prices  for  copyrights. 
Dryden,  for  example,  excused  himself  for  publishing  his 
operatic  version  of  Paradise  Lost  on  the  ground  that  it 
had  been  scandalously  maltreated  by  unauthorized 
printers  (or  copiers),  and  the  same  excuse  served  many 
authors,  bashful  and  otherwise,  for  a  long  time  to  come.^ 
None  the  less,  the  playwrights  managed,  in  time,  to  find 
publishers  willing  to  pay  reasonable  prices  (for  those 
days)  for  authentic  copy.  After  the  Restoration  the 
price  of  playbooks  rose  to  a  shilling  or  eighteenpence,^ 
and  perhaps  this  advance  had  something  to  do  with  the 
increased  remuneration  to  authors.  At  all  events.  South- 
erne  was  paid  £36  for  the  copyright  of  his  Fatal  Marriage 
as  early  as  1694.^ 

Tom  Da  vies  states  that  "old  Jacob  Tonson  "  purchased 
the  copyright  of  Venice  Preserved  for  fifteen  pounds.  — 
"What  would  another  such  play  be  worth  now?"^  ex- 

'  Cf.  Middle  ton's  Mayor  oj  ^ueenborough,  v,  i  (Bullen,  II,  103);  Malone, 
III,  162-163. 

^  Histrio-Mastix,  Epistle  Dedicatory. 

^  Heywood  had  long  before  given  the  same  reason  for  publishing  his  plays. 
See  Scott-Saintsbury  Dryden,  V,  in,  and  cf.  Brome  in  Chalmers,  English 
Poets,  1 810,  ¥1,641. 

^  See  below,  p.  60,  and  Arber,  Term  Catalogues,  I,  3,  etc. 

6  Malone,  III,  162-163. 

**  Dramatic  Miscellanies,  III,  253.  Cf.  Three  Original  Letters  .  .  .  on  the 
Cause  and  Manner  oj  the  late  Riot  at  the  Theatre-Royal,  1763, p.  21:  "A  book- 
seller of  great  repute  in  the  Strand,  can  produce  a  receipt  of  Otway's  given  to 
his  father,  {or fifteen  pounds  paid  for  the  copy  of  his  Venice  Preserved!" 


THE  PLAYWRIGHTS  51 

claims  Davies.  Malone  showed  long  ago  that  the  copy- 
rights of  much  poorer  plays  soon  brought  better  prices, 
and  he  concludes  that  by  1707  the  amount  ordinarily 
paid  was  £50.  For  that  sum,  also,  Steele  sold  Tonson  the 
rights  to  Addison's  comedy.  The  Drummer ^  in  171 5,  and 
Young  received  as  much  for  The  Revenge  in  1721.  South- 
erne,  meanwhile,  continued  to  point  the  way,  and  he  him- 
self writes  that  in  171 9,  when  his  Spartan  Dame  was 
produced  at  Drury  Lane,  Chetwood  paid  him  £1 20  for  the 
copyright.^ 

O'Keeffe  notes  in  his  Recollections  that  he  received 
sums  ranging  from  £40  to  £150  ^  for  his  copyrights  in  the 
last  two  decades  of  the  eighteenth  century,  and  he  re- 
marks also  that  in  the  case  of  some  of  his  plays  he  sold  the 
publishing  as  well  as  the  acting  rights  to  the  producer, 
Colman  the  Younger.  Colman  held  so  strongly  the  old 
belief  that  the  publication  of  plays  lessened  their  drawing 
power  that  he  refused  to  permit  O'Keeffe  —  who  was  his 
good  friend  —  to  print  five  of  these  pieces  in  his  collected 
Works  in  1798,  on  the  same  principle,  it  would  seem, 
which  had  led  Colman  the  Elder,  twenty  years  earlier,  to 
pay  £500  for  the  copyright  of  Foote's  unpublished  pieces. 
O'Keeffe  justly  complains  that,  while  he  was  not  permit- 
ted to  print  the  five  plays  held  by  Colman,  "they  have 
been  repeatedly  published  surreptitiously  (as  well  as 
those  of  other  authors)  and  are  full  of  the  most  glaring 
errors." 3  Verily,  things  had  not  changed  so  much  as  one 
might  have  imagined  since  the  days  of  Heywood  and 
Dry  den. 

And  while  pirating  of  this  sort  went  merrily  on,  the  act- 
ing rights  to  plays  were  also  flagrantly  violated.  So  late 
as  1795  ^^^  younger  Colman  thought  "the  interest  of  his 

1  Plays,  1774,  III,  81;  Malone,  III,  164;  Genest,  III,  8. 

2  Cumberland  sold  the  copyright  of  The  West  Indian  to  Griffin  the  pub- 
lisher for  £150,  "and  if  he  told  the  truth  when  he  boasted  of  having  vended 
12,000  copies,  he  did  not  make  a  bad  bargain"  {Memoirs,  I,  298). 

^  II,  2,  336,  305;  Preface  to  his  Works;  Fitzgerald,  II,  273. 


52  SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

theatre  hurt  by  the  frequent  exhibitions  of  Haymarket 
pieces  near  London,"  and  sued  the  manager  of  the  Rich- 
mond theatre  for  appropriating  O'Keeffe's  Son  in  Law 
and  Agreeable  Surprise.  The  courts,  however,  gave  him 
no  redress.^  It  seems  that  the  London  managers  long  be- 
fore this  had  reached  some  sort  of  working  agreement  to 
respect  each  other's  property  rights  in  plays,  but  it  is  dif- 
ficult to  reconstruct  its  terms.  Colley  Cibber  reports  that 
at  the  beginning  of  the  Restoration  the  two  houses  di- 
vided the  old  stock-plays  between  them  and  agreed  "  that 
no  Play  acted  at  one  House  should  be  attempted  at  the 
other,  ...  so  that  when  Hart  was  famous  for  playing 
Othello,  Better  ton  had  no  less  a  Reputation  for  Ham- 
let." 2  But  this  agreement  soon  lapsed,  and  before  long 
new  plays  as  well  as  old  were  carried  from  one  house  to 
the  other.  Thus  The  Beggar  s  Opera,  after  it  had  scored  its 
first  great  success  at  Lincoln's  Inn  Fields,  was  revived  year 
after  year  also  at  Drury  Lane,  and  the  playbills  of  the  two 
patent  houses  show  that  the  great  majority  of  successful 
pieces  after  their  first  run  at  one  house  or  the  other  were 
soon  adopted  by  its  rival.  I  have  already  had  much  to  say 
of  O'Keeffe,  yet  I  shall  draw  upon  him  again,  for  his  notes 
upon  managerial  methods  are  invaluable,  even  though  his 
plays  are  of  no  particular  consequence.  A  great  many  of 
his  plays  appeared  at  Drury  Lane,^  though  he  actually 
sold  all  but  one  of  them  to  the  Haymarket  and  Covent 
Garden.  Not  without  reason,  then,  is  his  complaint  that 
Drury  Lane  never  paid  him  a  shilling  for  any  of  these 
pieces.^  Equally  interesting  is  his  statement  that  he  was 
not  "retained"  by  any  theatre,  but  that,  like  Otway  and 
Southerne,  and  his  contemporaries  Cumberland  and  Rey- 
nolds, he  sold  his  work  to  one  house  or  another  without 

1  Oulton,  II,  179;  O'Keeffe,  II,  312-315. 

*  Apology y  I.  91- 

'  As  shown  by  the  playbills  in  the  British  Museum. 

*  He  did  get  £33,  6j.,  si.  in  1798  for  She's  Eloped^  the  one  play  which  he 
sold  to  Drury  Lane. 


THE  PLAYWRIGHTS  53 

being  under  contract  to  any.  Drury  Lane  did,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  seem  to  recognize  that  it  was  under  moral  obliga- 
tions to  O'Keeffe,  for  the  management  considered  favor- 
ably his  request  for  a  benefit  when  he  was  in  need  shortly 
after  his  retirement.  The  managers,  however,  must  have 
had  an  understanding  among  themselves  on  this  matter 
of  producing  each  other's  plays,  for  O'Keeffe  also  writes 
that  in  178 1,  when  the  Lord  Chamberlain's  wife  especially 
requested  that  two  of  his  Haymarket  pieces  be  presented 
at  Covent  Garden,  Colman  was  grudgingly  prevailed 
upon  to  permit  the  performance,  though  he  refused  a 
similar  request  two  years  later, ^ 

At  the  close  of  the  eighteenth  century  the  problem  of 
copyrights  and  acting  rights  was  still  unsolved,  but,  even 
so,  the  authors  were  beginning  to  hold  their  own  with  the 
"close  bargainers"  of  old  who  "drank  their  champagne 
out  of  authors'  skulls."  They  did  particularly  well  when 
Government  sought  to  suppress  their  work  entirely,  as 
sometimes  happened  after  the  highly  unpopular  licensing 
act  of  1737  was  passed.  I'he  first  play  to  be  prohibijied^ 
under  the  act  was  HenryBrooke's  Gustavus  Vasa^  in  I7,1lq,  , 
and  the  se(!ond  was  TKbmgotVs  Edward_and  Eleanora  ia-> 
tJTesarne]^year,_Rrnnke  at  once  printed  his  tragedy  by 
subscription,  netting  above  a  thousand  pounds,  and 
Thomson  seems  also  to  have  realized  a  considerable  sum 
by  publishing  his  forbidden  drama.^  Before  the  close  of 
the  century  certain  copyrights  brought  such  sums  even 
without  the  aid  of  the  official  censor.  Oulton  ^  states  that 
in  1799  Sheridan  refused  £800  for  the  copyright  of  his 
Pizarro.  He  insisted  upon  a  thousand  pounds  (or  guin- 
eas), and  when  that  was  refused  him,  he  published  the 

^  Recollections,  II,  391,  14-15,  53;  cf.  Cumberland,  Memoirs,  I,  291. 

^  Victor,  I,  52;  II,  116-117,  160;  Victor,  Original  Letters,  I,  33-34;  H. 
Wright,  Modem  Language  Review,  XIV,  174;  Cunningham's  note  to  John- 
son's Lives,  III,  234;  Morel,  James  Thomson,  pp.  128  fF.;  Macaulay,  James 
Thomson,  pp.  49-51. 

»  History  oj  the  Theatres  of  London,  181 8,  I,  56. 


54  SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

play  on  his  own  account  and  sold  29,000  copies  in  "  a  few- 
seasons, " 

Two  points  somewhat  related  to  those  just  considered 

—  the  poets'  earnings  from  flattering  dedications,  and 
from  prologues  and  epilogues  —  bring  us  back  to  South- 
erne,  and  then  to  certain  new  difiiculties  which  developed 
as  playwriting  grew  more  profitable.  Southerne,  as  we 
saw,  was  an  adept  at  pleasing  the  great  men  to  whom  he 
dedicated  his  plays,  and  his  purse  was  the  gainer.  Long 
before,  in  161 2,  Nathaniel  Field  had  written  in  the  pref- 
ace to  his  A  Woman  is  a  Weathercock^  that  he  would  not 
dedicate  his  play  to  anybody,  "because  forty  shillings  I 
care  not  for,"  and  many  other  allusions  indicate  that  a 
playbook  dedication  in  Shakspere's  time  did  not  ordi- 
narily net  the  author  more  than  two  or  three  pounds.^  Two 
or  three  generations  later,  according  to  Dr.  Doran,^  they 
were  worth  anywhere  from  five  to  twenty  guineas.  Con- 
greve,  to  be  sure,  would  have  nothing  to  do  with  "  begging 
dedications,"  ^  but  there  were  those  who  could  not  af- 
ford to  be  so  nice.  Colley  Cibber  might  have  done  with- 
out them,  but  he  proudly  notes  that  he  got  £200  from 
King  George  I  for  the  dedication  of  his  Non-Juror  (17 17), 

—  an  extraordinary  gift,  to  be  sure,  for  a  political  play 
which  especially  pleased  his  majesty.'* 

Cibber  tells  the  story,  also,  of  his  first  essay  in  pro- 
logue-writing. Sometime  before  he  had  won  his  spurs  as 
a  player,  a  day  came  when  a  new  prologue  was  required. 
Those  that  had  been  offered  were  deemed  unsatisfactory; 
and  so  the  future  laureate  looked  in  his  heart  and  wrote. 
To  his  delight,  the  first  heir  of  his  invention  won  favor  in 
the  eyes  of  the  manager,  but  that  cautious  old  sinner 
would  not  trust  him  to  speak  it!  "You  may  imagine," 
says  Colley,  "how  hard  I  thought  it,  that  they  durst  not 

'  See  Grosart's  Dekker,  III,  241;  Malone,  III,  164. 

2  II,  326;  cf.  Malone,  III,  164. 

*  The  Old  Bachelor,  iii,  i.  *  Letter  to  Mr.  Pope,  1742,  p.  12. 


THE  PLAYWRIGHTS  SS 

trust  my  poor  poetical  Brat  to  my  own  Care.  But  since  I 
found  it  was  to  be  given  into  other  Hands,  I  insisted  that 
two  Guineas  should  be  the  Price  of  my  parting  with  it; 
which  with  a  Sigh  I  received,  and  Powel  spoke  the 
Prologue."  ^  Perhaps  Gibber  might  have  been  better  satis- 
fied if  he  had  known  that  a  hundred  years  earlier  Middle- 
ton  got  but  five  shillings  for  a  similar  effort,^  though 
Middleton,  so  far  as  one  can  tell,  felt  no  such  grief  upon 
surrendering  his  child  to  another.  Gibber,  at  any  rate, 
earned  rather  less  by  the  transaction  than  Dryden  had 
done  before  him.  In  1682,  when  Dryden  wrote  the  pro- 
logue for  Sou  theme's  first  play,  The  Loyal  Brother^  he  is 
said  to  have  refused  the  two  guineas  Southerne  offered 
him  in  payment,  —  "Not,  young  man,  out  of  disrespect 
to  you,  but  the  players  have  had  my  goods  too  cheap." 
It  was  but  poetical  justice  that  Southerne  then  and  there 
—  if  the  story  be  reliable  —  raised  the  price  of  prologues 
to  three  guineas,  the  sum  which  Dryden  asked.^  It 
would  be  a  mistake,  however,  to  infer  that  all  the  count- 
less prologues  and  epilogues  of  the  seventeenth  and  eight- 
eenth century  were  bought  and  paid  for.  Great  numbers 
of  them  were  presented  to  playwrights  or  managers  by 
friends  and  by  literary  amateurs  in  general.  Even  when 
they  paid  for  them,  the  managers  usually  got  their 
money's  worth,  for  many  prologues  and  epilogues  were 
printed  and  sold  to  theatre-goers,  at  rates  varying  from 
a  penny  to  sixpence.* 

The  playwrights,  for  their  part,  could  stand  all  the 
comfort  that  came  to  them  from  the  proceeds  of  their 
dedications,  prologues,  and  epilogues,  for  new  times 
brought  them  new  troubles.    The  competition  of  their 

^  Apology,  I,  195-196.  2  See  above,  p.  25. 

'  Johnson,  Lives  oj  the  Poets,  ed.  Cunningham,  I,  300.  The  story  is  cur- 
rent in  several  versions,  and  the  figures  are  also  given  as  four  and  six  guineas, 
and  as  five  and  ten  (Malone,  Life  of  Dryden,  p.  456;  T.  Evans,  Southerne's 
Plays,  ITJ4,  I,  4-5;  Elwin-Courthope,  Pope,  IV,  497). 

*  Elwin-Courthope,  VIII,  iii;  Genest,  II,  452;  IV,  231. 


56  SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

brothers  of  the  nobility  and  gentry  was  by  no  means  the 
only  fly  in  their  ointment.  Indeed,  one  gets  the  impres- 
sion that  the  times  seemed  to  them  entirely  out  of  joint. 
At  all  events,  they  complained  in  several  modes  and  keys: 
first  —  with  a  rather  ungallant  astonishment  —  against 
a  new  competitor  for  the  favor  of  the  town,  none  other 
than  the  woman  dramatist;  secondly,  and  with  stronger 
emphasis,  against  their  brethren  who  were  also  actors, 
and  thus,  with  extra  incomes,  took  the  field  against  "a 
multitude  of  young  Writers,  some  of  whom  had  nothing 
else  to  subsist  on  but  their  Pens";^  finally,  and  most 
heartily  of  all,  against  another  set  of  persons  who  have 
always  been  the  despair  of  poet  and  player,  —  the  hard- 
hearted managers. 

One  of  the  speakers  in  Gildon's  Comparison  between  the 
Stages'^  may  present  the  first  point  of  this  indictment. 
"What,"  says  he,  "have  the  Women  to  do  with  the 
Muses?  ...  I  hate  these  Petticoat-Authors;  'tis  false 
grammar,  there's  no  feminine  for  the  Latin  word,  'tis  en- 
tirely of  the  Masculine  Gender,  and  the  Language  won't 
bear  such  a  thing  as  a  She-Author.  I  desire  to  have  noth- 
ing to  do  with  .  .  .  them.  .  .  .  Let  'em  scribble  on,  till 
they  can  serve  all  the  Pastry-cooks  in  Town,  the  Tobac- 
conists and  Grocers,  with  Wast-paper."  A  vain  protest, 
for  the  ladies  continued  to  find  a  better  use  for  their  time! 
Mrs.  Behn  and  Mrs.  Manly  in  Restoration  days,  Mrs. 
More,  Mrs.  Inchbald,  Mrs.  Centlivre  and  many  others 
in  the  eighteenth  century,  produced  scores  and  scores  of 
plays,  many  of  them  very  successful. 

The  actor  playwrights  fare  no  better  at  Gildon's  hands 
than  the  ladies.  "The  Players,"  he  grumbles,  "have  all 
got  the  itching  Leprosie  of  Scribbling  as  Ben  Johnson  calls 
it;  'twill  in  time  descend  to  Scene-keepers  and  Candle- 
snufi^ers."    As  a  matter  of  fact,  if  one  looks  through 

^  Gildon,  Preface  to  A  Comparison  between  the  Stages. 
2  Pp.  25-28. 


THE  PLAYWRIGHTS  57 

the  distinguished  dramatists  after  Shakspere's  time,  one 
has  to  search  long  and  closely  to  find  among  them  any 
actors  of  consequence;  or,  to  reverse  the  statement,  but 
few  successful  actors  went  very  seriously  into  the  business 
of  playwriting.  Tate  Wilkinson,  indeed,  goes  so  far  as  to 
say  that,  from  Betterton's  time  to  the  close  of  the  eight- 
eenth century,  there  was  but  one  actor  who  was  also  "a 
sterling  capital  writer  of  plays,"  and  that  was  Colley  Gib- 
ber.^ Every  one  knows  that  Otway,  Lee,  and  Farquhar 
all  tried  their  hand  at  acting,  but  with  indifferent  success. 
Experienced  actors,  on  the  other  hand,  had  better  luck 
in  their  attempts  at  authorship,  though  in  almost  all 
cases  both  the  quality  and  the  quantity  of  their  work  is 
small.  Betterton  and  several  of  his  colleagues  —  John 
Lacy,  Joseph  Harris,  George  Powell,  and  Richard  Est- 
court  —  wrote  occasional  plays,  which  owed  such  success 
as  they  won  to  their  authors'  skilled  stagecraft  and  excel- 
lent acting.  Colley  Gibber's  talents  lift  him  well  above 
these  predecessors,  but  he  is  remembered  to-day  for  his 
acting  and  his  inimitable  Apology^  while  his  plays  are 
practically  forgotten.  And  that  is  even  more  true  of  the 
"scribblings"  of  his  colleagues  and  immediate  succes- 
sors, —  such  as  his  son  Theophilus,  and  his  fellow-paten- 
tee, Thomas  Dogget,  and  Gharles  Macklin,  and  the  great 
Davy  himself.  Playwriting  with  these  men  was  dis- 
tinctly an  avocation,  and  as  honorable  and  profitable  a 
one,  doubtless,  as  they  could  have  found.  Gibber,  for  his 
part,  suggests  a  cogent  reason  for  his  energetic  labors 
with  the  pen.  I  have  already  quoted  his  complaint 
against  the  methods  of  Ghristopher  Rich,  who,  early  in 
Gibber's  career,  kept  the  salaries  of  his  players  constantly 
behindhand,  and  made  their  position  generally  insecure. 
To  let  Gibber  speak  for  himself  once  more:  "While  the 
Actors  were  in  this  Condition,  I  think  I  may  very  well  be 
excused  in  my  presuming  to  write  Plays:  which  I  was 

1  The  Wandering  Patentee^  I795)  I>  ^S* 


58  SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

forced  to  do  for  the  Support  of  my  encreasing  Family,  my 
precarious  Income  as  an  Actor  being  too  scanty  to  supply 
it  even  with  the  Necessaries  of  Life."  ^  Our  vivacious 
apologist  goes  on  to  say  that  his  dramatic  output  had  to 
keep  pace  with  the  growth  of  his  family,  and  that  the 
Muse,  when  called  upon  merely  to  do  family  duty,  cannot 
be  expected  always  to  respond  generously.  On  this  point, 
as  on  many  others,  Alexander  Pope  had  but  little  sym- 
pathy for  Cibber,  but  he  found  to  his  cost  that  this  same 
Gibber,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  he  was  poet  laureate  and 
a  poor  one  at  that,  was  less  of  a  dunce  than  his  critic  had 
thought.  In  his  Letter  to  Mr.  Pope  in  1742,  Cibber  again 
stated  a  substantial  part  of  the  case  for  the  actor  play- 
wright,—  as  follows:  "All  I  shall  say  ...  is,  that  I 
wrote  more  to  be  Fed,  than  to  be  Famous,  and  since  my 
Writings  still  give  me  a  Dinner,  do  you  rhyme  me  out  of 
my  Stomach  if  you  can."  ^ 

Cibber,  the  actor-playwright-apologist  who  holds  up 
to  public  condemnation  the  reprehensible  deeds  of  the 
wicked  Christopher  Rich,  doubtless  took  with  philo- 
sophic unconcern  the  violent  charges  that  were,  in  turn, 
hurled  against  Cibber,  the  manager  of  Drury  Lane. 
There  was  poetic  justice  in  the  thing,  for  no  man  was 
ever  more  roundly  abused  than  he.  The  accusations 
against  him  and  his  fellow  patentees  are  so  typical  of 
those  which  passed  current  against  their  successors,  that 
they  are  worthy  of  attention. 

The  same  anonymous  Proposal  for  the  Better  Regulation 
of  the  Stage  (1732)  to  which  I  have  already  referred,^ 
complains  bitterly  of  "  that  Haughtiness,  that  Contempt, 
that  Insolence,  which  Poets  are  now-a-days  treated  with" 
by  the  managers.    "Which  of  all  the  present  Writers," 

^  Apology,  I,  264. 

^  P.  5.  In  the  pamphlet  warfare  waged  between  the  two  men  before  and 
after  the  appearance  of  the  second  version  of  The  Dunciad,  Cibber  easily  held 
his  own. 

'  See  above,  p.  16. 


THE  PLAYWRIGHTS  59 

queries  this  defender  of  the  faith,  "is  sure  of  having  his 
Play  represented,  when  'tis  finish'd,  without  the  most 
vexatious  Delays,  and  the  most  tedious  Attendance? 
Which  of  them  is  secure  from  the  Managers  trifling  Crit- 
icisms and  unmannerly  Objections?  Which  of  their 
Plays  has  not  been  cut  and  mangled  by  them,  .  .  .  till 
the  Parent  could  not  distinguish  one  original  Feature  of 
his  Ofi-spring?"  ^  As  regards  the  first  of  these  points, 
there  were  doubtless  as  many  "vexatious  delays"  in 
productions,  —  certainly  unfortunate,  but  perhaps  un- 
avoidable,— in  the  eighteenth  century  as  there  are  to-day. 
Instances  of  eighteenth-century  plays  held  "about  six 
years  in  the  manager's  hands"  before  they  appeared,  are 
recorded,^  together  with  other  cases  of  plays  originally 
thrown  aside,  and  then,  as  an  afterthought,  produced 
with  brilliant  success,  after  the  death  of  the  unfortunate 
author. 

"The  dramatic  Muse,"  wrote  James  Ralph  in  1758,  "is 
the  coyest  of  the  Choir,  and  yet  as  often  stoops  to  a  Cox- 
comb as  any  Woman  of  them  all.  To  x'\ddison  she  was  a 
Prude;  she  was  a  Wanton  to  Cibber;  And,  in  general, 
when  least  courted,  is  easiest  won.  .  .  .  But  in  our  Days, 
all  Access  to  her  is  in  a  manner  cut  off^.  Those  who  have 
the  Custody  of  the  Stage  claim  also  the  Custody  of  the 
Muse.  .  .  .  Hence  the  Sterility  which  has  so  long  dis- 
grac'd  us.  .  .  .  Even  the  Bookseller  is  a  Perfect  Maecenas 
compar'd  to  the  Manager.  .  .  .  There  is  no  drawback  on 
the  Profit  of  the  Night  in  old  Plays  .  .  .  Hence  the  Pre- 
paratives from  Season  to  Season  so  artfully  laid,  to  keep 
the  Relish  of  these  stale  Performances  alive;  as  also  to 
deaden  every  Wish  for  new  ones!"^  This  charge  was  by 
no  means  a  new  one.  On  the  union  of  the  two  rival 
theatres  in  1682,  as  we  are  informed  by  a  contemporary, 

^  Pp.  5,  27.  For  a  similar  and  equally  vigorous  protest  see  the  preface  to 
Flecknoe's  Demoiselles  a  la  Mode  (1667). 

2  Cf.  Oulton,  II,  22)-  ^  The  Case  oj  Authors  Stated,  pp.  23-24. 


6o  SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

George  Powell,  in  the  preface  to  his  Treacherous  Brothers 
(1690),  "  the  reviveing  of  the  old  stock  of  Plays,  so  ingrost 
the  study  of  the  House,^  that  the  Poets  lay  dormant;  and 
a  new  Play  cou'd  hardly  get  admittance,  amongst  the 
most  precious  pieces  of  Antiquity  that  then  waited  to 
walk  the  Stage."  But  eight  short  years  had  brought  a 
change,  "and  since  the  World  runs  all  upon  Extremes," 
—  so  Powell  continues  —  "  as  you  had  such  a  Scarcity  of 
new  ones  then;  'tis  Justice  you  shou'd  have  as  great  a 
glut  of  them  now:  for  this  reason,  this  little  Prig  makes 
bold  to  thrust  in  with  the  Crowd."  And  in  1702  we  find 
Charles  Gildon  ascribing  the  decline  of  the  stage  to  the 
deluging  of  the  theatre  with  new,  hastily  written,  and  al- 
together good-for-nothing  plays.  Poetry,  he  believes, "  was 
never  at  so  low  an  Ebb"  as  in  his  own  day,  —  "and  yet 
the  Stages  were  never  so  delug'd:  I  am  sure  you  can't 
name  me  five  Plays  that  have  indur'd  six  Days  acting, 
for  fifty  that  were  damn'd  in  three.  .  .  .  They're  no 
sooner  out  of  the  Cradle,  but  they  enter  into  their 
Graves."  ^  All  this  in  spite  of  the  fact  that 

The  People  never  were  in  a  better  Humour  for  Plays;  nor 
were  the  Houses  ever  so  crowded,  tho'  the  rates  have  run  very 
high,  sometimes  to  a  scandalous  excess;  never  did  printed 
Plays  rise  to  such  a  Price,  and  what  is  more,  never  were  so 
many  Poets  prefer'd  as  in  the  last  ten  Years:  If  this  be  dis- 
couragement, I  have  done.  On  the  contrary,  the  Poets  have 
had  too  great  an  Encouragement,  for  'tis  the  Profit  of  the 
Stage  that  makes  so  many  Scriblers,  and  surfeits  the  Town 
with  new  Eighteen-penny  Plays. 

Too  many  new  plays  or  not  enough,  —  in  either  case, 
curse  the  manager!  But  there  were  more  specific  charges 
still.   James  Ralph,  in  the  pamphlet  from  which  I  have 

^  Cf.  Lowe,  Betterton,  p.  129;  see  below,  p.  123. 

^  Comparison,  1702,  Preface.  The  same  point  is  made,  with  equal  vigor, 
by  Tom  Brown  {IVorks,  ed.  1720,  II,  23),  in  the  Duke  of  Newcastle's  Tri- 
umphant Widow  (1677,  Act  ii,  p.  24),  and  in  the  Prologue  to  Loves  Con- 
trivance, a  Drury  Lane  play,  printed  1703. 


THE  PLAYWRIGHTS  6i 

already  quoted,  proceeds  as  follows :  "  Cibber  was  Player, 
Writer,  and  Manager  too,  and,  over  and  above,  a  Bottle 
of  as  pert  small  Beer,  as  ever  whizz'd  in  any  Man's  Face. 
Notwithstanding  which,  Gay,  under  his  Dictatorship,  was 
driven  from  Drury-Lane  to  Lincoln's-Inn-Fields  and  had 
it  not  been  for  an  uncommon  Confederacy  of  Men  of 
Rank  and  Parts  in  support  of  his  Pretensions,  his  excel- 
lent Opera  (from  whence  both  Houses  have  drawn  such 
considerable  Profits)  had  been  rejected  at  both  Houses 
alike."  ^ 

Here,  too,  is  a  text  which  could  be  garnished  out  at  will 
with  ample  citations  from  the  fathers,  and,  indeed,  from 
the  records  of  later  days.  After  Cibber  had  rejected  The 
Beggar  s  Opera,  only  to  have  it  achieve  the  most  sensa- 
tional triumph  of  the  age  at  Lincoln's  Inn  Fields,  he  had 
much  the  same  experience  with  Fenton's  Mariamne^ 
though  Fenton,  to  be  sure,  did  not  equal  Gay's  success. 
Equally  notorious  was  Garrick's  refusal  of  Dodsley's 
Cleone,  and,  more  particularly,  of  Home's  Douglas,  both 
of  which  were  afterwards  triumphantly  produced  at  Co- 
vent  Garden;  nor  did  Garrick  retrieve  his  blunder  by  pro- 
ducing some  of  Home's  later  pieces,  for  they  deservedly 
failed.-  But  all  this  proves  only  that  managers,  then  as 
now,  were  not  infallible. 

Before  returning  to  the  indictment  against  Colley 
Cibber,  I  should  like  to  emphasize  the  fact  that  other 
managers  also  were  plainly  told  what  their  critics  thought 
of  them.  "In  the  other  House,"  we  read,  "  there's  an  old 
snarling  Lawyer  Master  and  Sovereign;  a  waspish,  igno- 
rant Pettifogger  in  Law  and  Poetry;  one  who  under- 
stands Poetry  no  more  than  Algebra  .  .  .  What  a  Pox 
has  he  to  do  so  far  out  of  his  way?  can't  he  pore  over  his 
Plowden  and  Dal  ten,  and  let  Fletcher  and  Beaumont 

1  P.  26. 

*  Davies,  Life  of  Garrick,  I,  247-253;  Life  of  G.  A.  Bellamy,  3d  ed.,  II, 
105  ff. 


62  SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

alone?"  ^  This,  of  course,  was  Christopher  Rich.  As  be- 
tween the  methods  of  John  Rich,  his  son  and  successor  at 
Covent  Garden,  and  those  of  Garrick  at  Drury  Lane, 
Garrick's  are  said  to  have  been  gentler.  Smollett,  in 
Roderick  Random  (1748),  suggests  that  Garrick  very 
courteously  rejected  manuscripts  he  had  not  looked  at, 
whereas  Rich  piled  them  up  in  huge  heaps  and  told  au- 
thors who  demanded  their  copy  to  take  their  choice  from 
the  lot,  —  they  would  probably  find  something  better 
than  their  own.^  He  did  not  invent  this  latter  trait,  for 
the  anonymous  mock  Apology  of  1740  tells  a  similar  story 
of  Quin. 

When  Mr.  James  Quin  was  a  managing  Actor  under  Mr. 
Rich,  at  Lincolns-Inn-Fields,  he  had  a  whole  Heap  of  Plays 
brought  him,  which  he  put  in  a  Drawer  in  his  Beauroe:  An 
Author  had  given  him  a  Play  behind  the  Scenes,  which  I  sup- 
pose he  might  lose,  or  mislay,  not  troubling  his  Head  about  it. 
Two  or  three  Days  after  Mr.  Bayes  waited  on  him  to  know 
how  he  lik'd  his  Play:  Quin  told  him  some  Excuse  for  its  not 
being  receiv'd,  and  the  Author  desir'd  him  to  have  it  re- 
turn d.  —  "There,  says  Quin,  there  it  lies  upon  that  Table." 
—  The  Author  took  up  a  Play  that  was  lying  on  a  Table,  but 
on  opening  found  it  was  a  Comedy,  and  his  was  a  Tragedy ,  and 
told  Quin  the  Mistake:  —  "Faith  then.  Sir,  said  he,  I  have 
lost  your  play"  —  Lost  my  Play!  cries  the  Bard  —  "Yes  by 
G-d  I  have,  answer'd  the  Tragedian,  but  here  is  a  Drawer  full 
of  both  Comedies  and  Tragedies,  take  any  two  you  will  in  the 
Room  of  it."  3 

Something  more  is  to  be  said  for  the  managers;  but  let  us 
first  complete  the  case  against  Gibber. 

James  Ralph  rallied  to  the  attack  in  1731,  in  his  Taste 
of  the  Town.^  Therein  he  pointed  out  that  a  dramatic 
poet  has  to  stand  all  sorts  of  questions:    "What  is  his 

1  Gildon,  Comparison,  pp.  15-16. 

^  Chapter  Ixiii. 

3  An  Apology  for  the  Lije  oj  Mr.  T[heophilus]  C[ibber],  p.  72. 

*  P.  68. 


THE  PLAYWRIGHTS  63 

name,  his  Character  and  Fortune?  Is  he  a  Whig  or 
Tory?  What  great  Men  countenance  him?  .  .  .  Pf^/iat 
thinks  Co — ly  oj  the  Afair^  Will  the  Gentleman  allow  his 
Play  to  be  alter'd  and  resign  the  Profits  of  his  third 
Night,  for  the  Name  of  a  Poet  ?  ^  This  they  call  sitting  as 
Judges  upon  the  Body  of  a  Play."  But,  "if  one  of  their 
own  Fraternity  is  deliver'd  of  a  Bastard;  however  ridic- 
ulous, vile,  or  misshapen,  the  Changeling  is,  it  must  be 
publickly  christen'd,  finely  dress'd  and  put  to  Nurse  at 
the  publick  Charge."  Fielding,  who  had  no  love  for  the 
Cibbers,  father  or  son,  amplifies  these  accusations.  As 
Marplay  Senior  and  Junior  in  Fielding's  piece.  The  Au- 
thor s  Farce  (1734),  they  are  made  to  discuss  their  meth- 
ods very  frankly.  The  young  man  describes  himself  and 
his  father  as  "  a  couple  of  poetical  tailors.  .  .  .  When  a 
play  is  brought  us,  we  consider  it  as  a  tailor  does  his  coat; 
cut  it,  sir,  we  cut  it.  .  ,  .  We  have  the  exact  measure  of 
the  town,  we  know  how  to  fit  their  taste.  The  poets,  be- 
tween you  and  me,  are  a  pack  of  ignorant  — ."  The  father 
of  this  promising  son  praises  him  for  rejecting  a  good 
comedy.  "  If  thou  writest  thyself,"  he  says,  "  it  is  thy  in- 
terest to  keep  back  all  other  authors  of  any  merit,  and  be 
as  forward  to  advance  those  of  none.  .  .  .  The  art  of 
writing,  boy,  is  the  art  of  stealing  old  plays,  by  changing 
the  name  of  the  play,  and  new  ones,  by  changing  the 
name  of  the  author."  ^ 

This  charge  of  plagiarism  was  specifically  and  openly 
repeated  against  the  elder  Cibber  elsewhere,^  and  Field- 
ing brought  it  also  against  Rich.^  It  will  be  remembered 
that  Sheridan,  in  The  Critic^  laughed  at  the  promulgators 
of  these  or  similar  charges  later,  for  he,  too,  was  a  man- 
ager who  wrote  plays.    Sir  Fretful  Plagiary  would  never 

^  The  charge  implied  in  this  question  is  repeated  in  the  preface  to  Charles 
Shadwell's  Fair  ^aker. 

^  Cf.  Cross,  Fielding,  I,  150-152. 
^  See  Genest,  II,  390. 
*  Cross,  I,  193. 


64  SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

think  of  submitting  a  play  to  Old  Drury,  —  "O  Lud,  no!" 
for  the  manager  of  that  house  "writes  himself  .  .  .  and 
those  who  write  themselves  may  steal  your  best  thoughts 
to  make  'em  pass  for  their  own."  Indeed,  as  Sneer  cheer- 
fully admits,  a  dexterous  plagiarist  might  steal  some  of  the 
best  things  from  the  tragedies  offered  and  put  them  into 
his  own  comedy!  In  short,  the  chances  are  that  the  Gib- 
bers, the  Riches,  and  their  fellows  were  not  much  more 
culpable  in  this  respect  than  the  managers  of  our  day, 
some  of  whom,  as  every  one  knows,  have  not  escaped 
similar  charges, 

I  have  quoted  Gibber  in  his  own  defence  for  writing 
plays  when  he  was  young,  married,  and  impecunious,  and 
I  have  now  to  add  a  word  in  explanation  of  his  later  con- 
duct, and  that  of  his  brethren,  in  the  profitable  but  diffi- 
cult position  of  manager.  For  it  should  be  remembered 
that  Gibber  was  not  the  sole  monarch  of  all  he  surveyed. 
His  fellow-patentees  shared  his  powers  and  responsibili- 
ties, and  it  is  unfair  to  hold  him  alone  to  blame  for  the 
"choaking  of  singing  birds"  ^  which  his  enemies  represent 
as  his  chief  occupation  at  Drury  Lane.  There  is  extant  an 
agreement  signed  by  Gibber,  Wilks,  and  Booth  and  dated 
January  17,  171 8,  which  provides  that  "no  play  shall  be 
received  into  the  house  .  .  .  but  by  an  order  under  the 
hands  of  three  of  the  managers."  ^  Even  so.  Gibber  was 
well  aware  of  the  difficulties  of  his  position.  "A  Men- 
ager,"  he  writes,  "ought  to  be  at  the  Reading  of  every 
new  Play  when  it  is  first  offer'd  to  the  Stage,  though  there 
are  seldom  one  of  those  Plays  in  twenty  which,  upon 
hearing,  proves  to  be  fit  for  it;  and  upon  such  Occasion 
the  Attendance  must  be  allow'd  to  be  as  painfully  te- 
dious as  the  getting  rid  of  the  Authors  of  such  plays  must 
be  disagreeable  and  difficult."    Obviously  the  extreme 

*  Cf.  Davies,  Life  of  Garrick,  I,  247. 

^  Printed  by  Fitzgerald,  I,  417,  from  R.  J.  Smitli's  Collection  of  Materiel 
towards  an  History  of  the  English  Stage,  vol.  Ill  (British  Museum). 


IriL    ^17 1/^;^    0^   ^^  f^  rcH  W.y^ 


/f[p/<  ^  Y^ V/ 


THE  PLAYWRIGHTS  6^ 

seventy  with  which  audiences  of  that  time  "damned  a 
bad  play"  —  the  factions  and  the  mob  tyranny  which 
too  often  disgraced  the  theatre  ^  —  made  the  choice  all 
the  more  difficult.  In  fine,  he  was  not  "conscious  that  we 
ever  did  .  .  .  any  of  [the]  Fraternity"  of  playwrights 
"the  least  Injustice."  Sometimes,  indeed,  the  managers 
accepted  and  produced  a  play  against  their  better  judg- 
ment: "The  Recommendation,  or  rather  Imposition,  of 
some  great  Persons  (whom  it  was  not  Prudence  to  dis- 
oblige) sometimes  came  in  with  a  high  Hand  .  .  .  and 
then  .  .  .  acted  it  must  be!  So  when  the  short  Life  of 
this  wonderful  Nothing  was  over,  the  Actors  were  per- 
haps abus'd  in  a  Preface,  .  .  .  and  the  Town  publickly 
damn'd  us  for  our  private  Civility."  ^ 

Here  is  a  point  that  is  certainly  well  taken.  Doubtless 
the  managers  were  sometimes  harsh  and  not  too  judicious, 
but  they  were  forced,  in  sheer  self-defence,  to  adopt  some- 
what brusque  methods.  They  were  deluged  with  manu- 
scripts. I  have  shown  that  it  was  at  least  as  fashionable  to 
write  a  play  in  those  days  as  it  is  now,  and  I  must  add 
that  every  one  used  all  the  influence  at  his  command  to 
get  a  hearing.  When  Frederick  Reynolds,  for  instance, 
sent  his  Werter  to  the  manager  of  Covent  Garden,  Lord 
Effingham  "promised  to  exert  himself  to  the  utmost"  in 
its  behalf  with  "his  friend,  the  manager,"  and  so  did 
other  influential  persons;  but  the  manager  had  the  cour- 
age and  good  sense  to  refuse  the  piece,  until  its  gushing 
sentimentality  had  first  won  the  plaudits  of  Bath.^ 
Richard  Cumberland's  Memoirs  ^  supply  a  further  case 
in  point.  Cumberland,  before  he  tried  himself  on  the 
stage,  had  been  private  secretary  to  Lord  Halifax.  About 
the  year  1767,  when  the  young  man  had  completed  his 
first  tragedy,   The  Banishment  of  Cicero^  Halifax  per- 

1  See  also  pp.  19,  144  ff.        ^  Apology^  II,  204,  251-252;  cf.  I,  176. 
^  Lije  and  Times,  I,  299-315,  321. 
*  I,  203-204. 


66  SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

sonally  took  it  and  his  protege  to  Garrick,  who  was  under 
obhgations  to  the  great  man.  Garrick  returned  the  piece 
with  the  humblest  apologies.  It  was  exceedingly  well 
written,  but  —  unsuitable  for  presentation!  Cumber- 
land adds  that,  in  spite  of  Garrick's  excuses,  Halifax 
"warmly  resented  his  non-compliance  with  his  wishes, 
and  for  a  time  forbore  to  live  in  habits  of  his  former  good 
neighbourhood  with  him."  Fielding  in  his  time  had  better 
luck,^  for  his  first  play,  Love  in  Several  Masques,  reached 
the  stage  in  1728  largely  through  the  influence  of  his  bril- 
liant kinswoman.  Lady  Mary  Wortley  Montagu. 

There  is  plenty  of  evidence,  moreover,  to  show  that  the 
relations  between  managers  and  playwrights  were  not 
always  characterized  by  haughtiness  and  contempt  on  the 
one  hand,  and  bitterness  on  the  other.  Smollett,  when  he 
was  eighteen,  wrote  a  tragedy  called  The  Regicide,  which 
he  offered  successively  to  both  the  houses.  It  was  re- 
fused, and  the  author  revenged  himself  for  the  rebuff  in 
certain  biting  chapters  oi  Roderick  Random  and  Peregrine 
Pickle.^  Here  he  mercilessly  castigates  players  and  man- 
agers in  general,  while  John  Rich  and  Garrick  in  partic- 
ular are  described  as  "scoundrels  habituated  to  falsehood 
and  equivocation."  In  1757,  however,  Smollett's  Tars  of 
Old  England  was  produced  at  Drury  Lane.  Garrick  not 
only  showed  magnanimity  and  sound  sense  in  accepting 
the  piece,  but  gave  further  evidence  of  friendliness  and 
good  faith.  Smollett,  for  his  part,  was  sensible  enough  to 
accept  the  olive  branch  and  generous  enough  to  make  a 
public  retractation  of  his  earlier  charges,  and  the  two  men 
became  firm  friends. 

Before  Garrick's  time,  Robert  Wilks,  a  great  actor  and 
one  of  Gibber's  managerial  colleagues  at  Drury  Lane,  had 
won  fame  for  his  kindliness  and  generosity  almost  as 

'  Cross,  I,  58. 

^  Roderick  Random,  Chapters  Ixii-lxiv;  Peregrine  Pickle,  Chapter  li;  cf. 
Davies,  Life  oj  Garrick,  I,  Chapter  xxv. 


THE  PLAYWRIGHTS  67 

much  as  for  his  histrionic  powers.  It  is  credibly  reported 
that  on  one  occasion,  when  a  poor  playwright  brought  in 
a  piece  which  was  accepted  but  could  not  be  produced  at 
once,  Wilks  bought  a  benefit  for  him  from  his  partners, 
and  procured  him  a  hundred  guineas.  Wilks  and  another 
of  the  patentees,  Sir  Richard  Steele,  labored  early  and 
late  to  assist  the  unfortunate  Richard  Savage.  Savage's 
play.  Sir  Thomas  Overbury^  was  produced  at  Drury  Lane 
in  1723,  but  nobody  could  save  him  from  himself.  Again, 
Wilks  proved  a  lifelong  friend  to  still  another  playwright, 
George  Farquhar,  a  gallant  spirit  who  deserved  a  better 
fate  than  that  which  befell  him.  He  gave  Farquhar  of  his 
best  —  and  inspired  him  to  give  as  good  as  he  received  — 
in  creating  the  leading  roles  in  Farquhar's  successive 
comedies,  helped  him  in  various  ways  while  he  was  alive, 
and  provided  for  his  children  after  his  death. ^  "His  care 
of  the  Orphan  Daughters  of  Mr.  Farquhar,"  writes  Chet- 
wood,  "by  giving  them  several  Benefit  Plays,  continued 
to  the  last  of  his  Days;  and,  in  losing  him,  they  have  in 
Reality  lost  a  Father."  2 

There  are  other  records  of  kindlier  relations  between 
managers  and  playwrights  than  those  suggested  by  the 
pamphleteers  we  have  been  examining.  After  the  death 
of  James  Thomson,  for  example,  a  benefit  performance  of 
his  Coriolanus  helped  to  provide  for  his  sisters,^  and 
many  similar  good  deeds  are  recorded.  Garrick  good- 
naturedly  used  his  influence  to  obtain  political  prefer- 
ment for  Jephson,  whom  Malone  considered  the  finest 
tragic  poet  of  his  time."*  O'Keeffe,  as  we  have  seen,  had 
his  grievances;  yet  he  bears  testimony  to  the  fact  that  the 

1  Curll,  Life  of  Wilks,  1733,  p.  23\  Johnson,  Life  oj  Savage,  Lives,  ed.  Cun- 
ningham, II,  356-359;  T.  Gibber,  Lives  of  the  Poets,  1753,  V,  213;  Genest,  IV, 
320. 

2  History  oJ  the  Stage,  1749,  p.  239. 

3  Shiels  in  T.  Gibber's  Lives  of  the  Poets,  V,  215-216;  Morel,  James  Thom- 
son, pp.  1 80-1 81,  186. 

*  O'KeefFe,  Recollections,  I,  83;  Malone,  III,  164. 


68  SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

Colmans  treated  him  kindly  and  considerately,  and  that 
Harris,  manager  of  Covent  Garden,  arranged  for  an  an- 
nuity on  his  retirement.!  Many  of  his  contemporaries 
also  —  Cumberland,  Reynolds,  the  Dibdins,  and  others 
—  lived  on  terms  of  friendship  with  the  managers  and 
praised  their  fair  deahng. 

Interesting  and  important  as  are  the  varied  achieve- 
ments of  the  eighteenth  century,  it  goes  without  saying 
that  so  far  as  dramatic  poesy  is  concerned,  the  divine  fire 
had  sunk  lower  and  lower  since  Shakspere's  time  and  the 
Restoration.  But  the  playwrights  were  better  paid  than 
their  predecessors,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  they  were  less 
inspired.  In  so  far  as  their  own  shrewdness  and  energy 
bettered  the  status  of  their  profession,  they  contributed 
no  mean  service  to  aftertimes,  even  though  the  bulk  of 
their  work  is  deservedly  forgotten.  In  the  eighties,  to- 
wards the  close  of  his  career,  O'Keeffe  frequently  sold  his 
plays  outright  for  sums  ranging  from  four  hundred  to  six 
hundred  guineas.^  Thomas  Dibdin,  Arthur  Murphy,  and 
Frederick  Reynolds  did  as  well,  and  Reynolds  informs  us 
that  some  of  his  contemporaries,  Morton  and  Mrs.  Inch- 
bald  among  them,  sometimes  drew  as  much  as  eight 
hundred  or  a  thousand  pounds.^  About  1790,  at  the  sug- 
gestion of  Cumberland,  the  managers  adopted  an  arrange- 
ment which  allowed  the  playwrights  to  choose  between 
their  traditional  three  benefits  and  an  advance  of  one 
hundred  pounds  for  each  benefit  up  to  three,  with  a 
fourth  hundred  for  pieces  running  as  long  as  twenty 
nights.  One  of  the  managers  of  the  time  ^  writes  that  the 
guaranteed  payment  was  generally  preferred  by  the 
authors,  —  but  surely  not  by  all!    Benefits  or  royalties, 

'  Recollections,  II,  117,  346,  384-386. 

2  II,  12,  97. 

3  II,  283.  Cf.  Dibdin's  Reminiscences,  I,  277,  241,  347,  368;  Jesse  Foot, 
Life  oj  Arthur  Murphy,  pp.  175,  226-228. 

*  Harris,  of  Covent  Garden,  in  the  Observations  on  the  Statement  of  DiJ- 
erences  (p.  36),  which  details  the  new  scheme. 


THE  PLAYWRIGHTS  69 

the  profits  of  a  crammed  third  day  or  the  author's  share  of 
a  successful  season  on  Broadway  or  the  Strand,  —  the 
very  element  of  uncertainty,  the  risk  of  failure  offset  by 
the  golden  hope  of  fame  as  well  as  pence,  these  things  con- 
tinue to  lead  men  to  write  plays.  Some,  of  course,  still 
wield  the  pen  merely  because  it  is  an  amiable  human 
weakness  to  try  to  write  a  play;  and  the  chosen  few  will 
continue  to  write  not  out  of  human  weakness  but  by 
virtue  of  a  strength  that  is  greater  than  their  own.  It  is 
not  very  many  years  since  Sir  James  Barrie  was  glad  to 
produce  indiflferent  journalism  at  three  pounds  a  week,  in 
order  to  keep  alive  while  he  was  trying  to  write  something 
better.  Men  of  talent  still  find  that  in  the  drama  as  in  life 
there  is  (in  Byron's  phrase)  nothing  so  difficult  as  the 
beginning.  Even  genius  may  still  starve  in  a  garret,  but 
tragedy  of  that  kind  has  lost  much  of  its  vogue  since  the 
eighteenth  century. 


Chapter  III 


THE  PLAYERS 

IN  Shakspere's  time  "the  play  was  the  thing,"  but 
hardly  second  in  importance  were  the  players,  —  that 
is  to  say,  the  dramatic  companies.  Since  the  Restoration 
the  individual  star  and  the  manager  have  come  into  their 
own  and  the  importance  of  the  company  has  waned 
steadily.  Conditions  were  different  in  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury. The  day  of  the  theatrical  capitalist  and  producer 
was  not  yet,*  and  the  actor,  accordingly,  had  far  greater 
responsibilities  than  his  successors,  but  also  greater  op- 
portunities. It  is  certain  that  the  Elizabethan  drama 
owes  more  than  has  yet  been  realized  to  the  fact  that 
many  of  the  playwrights,  and  all  the  producing  managers, 
were  actors.  And  these  actors  were  artists  who  knew 
their  audience  intimately  enough  to  gauge  its  capacities. 
Also,  they  were  shrewd  business  men,  and  they  acknowl- 
edged no  paymaster  or  employer  but  their  audience. 

The  Elizabethan  actor-sharers,  not  the  owners  of  the 
playhouses,^  were  in  charge  of  productions.  The  Hens- 
lowe  documents  prove  clearly  that  the  actors  at  the 
Rose,  the  Hope,  and  the  Fortune,  selected  their  own  plays 
and  produced  them,  though  they  frequently  had  to  bor- 
row money  for  that  purpose.^  Again,  we  know  from  the 
Globe  and  Blackfriars  Share  Papers  of  1635  ^  ^^^^  Shak- 

^  Henslowe  made  short-term  loans  to  his  players,  and  that  is  all.  See 
n.  3,  and  p.  72,  n.  2,  below. 

^  See  above,  p.  28. 

^  Hens/owe  Papers,  pp.  23-24,  49,  56,  84;  Diary,  II,  120-121.  We  are  not 
concerned  here  with  the  children's  companies.  They,  of  course,  were  man- 
aged by  adult  owners. 

*  Halliwell-Phillipps,  Outlines,  I,  313. 

70 


THE  PLAYERS  71 

spere's  company  and  their  successors  counted  among  their 
expenses  all  payments  for  plays,  costumes  and  properties, 
music,  attendants,  and  the  like;  and  the  same  arrange- 
ments prevailed  at  the  Swan  and  the  Red  Bull.^  In  short, 
it  is  clear  that  this  was  the  established  system,  and  that 
the  companies  made  not  only  the  payments  but  also  the 
purchases  and  appointments.  I  have  already  explained 
how  the  daily  takings  were  divided  between  the  house- 
keepers and  the  actor-sharers.^  Let  me  add  that  after 
meeting  their  current  expenses,  the  five  or  six  leading 
members  of  each  company  (such  men  as  Burbage,  Shak- 
spere,  Hemings,  and  Condell)  shared  the  remainder  of 
their  portion  "in  equal  fellowship."  This  is  not  to  say, 
however,  that  they  took  all  that  was  left,  for  they  also 
allotted  quarter,  half,  or  three-quarter  shares  to  younger 
players  of  promise,  —  such,  for  instance,  as  Alexander 
Cook,  Samuel  Gilborne,  and  Christopher  Beeston,  all  of 
whom  had  previously  served  their  apprenticeship  under 
Shakspere's  colleagues.^  Hamlet,  it  will  be  remembered, 
thought  himself  qualified  for  a  full  "fellowship  in  a  cry  of 
players,"  and  scorned  "  half  a  share."  *  Unlike  the  Prince 
of  Denmark,  most  young  Elizabethan  actors  probably 
regarded  half  a  share  as  no  mean  reward,  for  the  daily 
takings  were  substantial  in  those  happy  times.  The  play- 
wrights Samuel  Rowley  and  Thomas  Heywood  began 
their  career  on  the  boards  as  mere  hirelings^  that  is,  as 
supers  or  players  of  small  parts,  whom  the  company  paid 
out  of  its  funds  the  munificent  sum  of  five,  six,  or  at  most 
ten  shillings  a  week.^  Hirelings  both  in  1598,  Rowley  and 
Heywood  had  become  full  sharers  by  1602.^  The  hope  of 

1  C.  W.   Wallace,   Englische  Studien,  XLIII,  352-353;    Three  London 
Theatres,  pp.  35  ff. 

*  See  above,  p.  28.  ^  Chalmers,  Apology,  pp.  433,  446-449. 

*  iii,  2,  289-290. 

^  Diary,  I,  204;  II,  101-102,  284-285,  307. 

*  Diary,  I,  xlix,  40,  201 ;  John  Melton,  Astrologaster,  1620,  p.  31 ;  Gosson, 
School  oj  Abuse,  Shakespeare  Society,  p.  29;  cf.  Henslowe  Papers,  p.  89. 

^  Diary,  I,  122-125,  164;  II,  101-103;  Murray,  I,  53. 


72  SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

advancement  kept  the  hirelings  contentedly  at  work  at 
low  wages,  and  the  companies  were  free  at  any  time  to 
strengthen  their  organizations  by  an  infusion  of  new 
blood. 

The  companies,  moreover,  were  self-governing,  demo- 
cratic institutions.  There  were  among  their  members  no 
stars,  in  the  present  sense  of  that  term,  for  I  think  not 
even  Edward  Alleyn  or  Richard  Burbage,  great  actors 
though  they  were,  can  be  properly  so  described.  Thomas 
Greene,  the  most  popular  actor  of  the  Red  Bull  company 
of  1620,  is  spoken  of  in  a  contemporary  document  simply 
as  "a  full  adventurer,  storer,  and  sharer"  in  his  com- 
pany,^ and  the  five  incorporators  and  chief  actors  of  the 
Duke  of  York's  Men  of  1609  bound  themselves  to  guide 
the  affairs  of  that  company  "in  equal  fellowship."  2  In 
the  year  161 9  Queen  Anne's  Men,  then  playing  at  the 
Red  Bull,  became  involved  in  litigation,  like  many  an- 
other company  then  and  now.  The  company's  state- 
ment suggests  how  it  was  managed.  "For  the  better 
orderinge  and  setting  forth"  of  its  plays,  it  "required 
divers  officers  and  that  every  one  of  the  said  Actors 
should  take  vpon  them  some  place  and  charge."  The 
office  of  business  manager  was  particularly  important. 
"The  prouision  of  the  furniture  &  apparrell  was  a  place 
of  greateest  chardge  and  trust  and  must  of  necessitie  fall 
vpon  a  thriueing  man  &  one  that  was  of  abilitie  and 
meanes."  This  work,  then,  they  assigned  to  Christopher 
Beeston,  for  whose  expenditures  they  reserved  out  of  their 
daily  receipts  "  a  certen  some  of  money  as  a  comon  stock."^ 
In  this  particular  case  it  appears  that  the  company  was 
unwise  or  unfortunate  in  its  choice,  for  Beeston  appar- 
ently defrauded  it  of  large  sums  of  money.    The  signifi- 

^  Greenstreet,  New  Shakspere  Society  Transactions,  1880-86,  p.  499. 

^  Wallace,  Globe  Theatre  Apparel,  p.  9.  For  a  fuller  discussion,  see  the 
writer's  paper  on  The  Elizabethan  Dramatic  Companies  in  Publications  oj  the 
Modern  Language  Association,  March,  1920,  XXXV,  123  ff. 

'  Wallace,  Three  London  Theatres,  pp.  35-36. 


THE  PLAYERS  73 

cant  point  to  note,  however,  is  that  the  company  chose 
its  own  business  manager  and  assigned  to  each  of  its 
sharers  "some  place  and  charge."  The  importance  of 
honest  and  able  leadership  in  democratic  institutions  is 
shown  by  the  history  of  the  Elizabethan  dramatic  com- 
panies. In  that  respect  as  in  others  Shakspere's  company 
was  doubly  fortunate.  One  of  its  greatest  assets  was  the 
devoted  service  of  John  Hemings,  for  many  years  its 
business  manager,  and  later  an  editor  of  the  First  Folio. 
Hemings  adroitly  won  the  good  graces  of  successive  mas- 
ters of  the  revels,  he  defended  successfully  an  unending 
series  of  lawsuits  brought  against  the  company,  and  he 
proved  a  true  and  generous  friend  to  his  colleagues  living 
and  dead.^  Nathaniel  Field,  the  celebrated  actor  and 
playwright,  labored  energetically  as  business  manager  of 
the  Lady  Elizabeth's  Men,^  and  others  filled  similar  posts 
according  to  their  lights  and  ability.  They  had  their  prob- 
lems and  difficulties,  but  these  were  different  in  kind  from 
those  nowadays  imposed  upon  the  long-suffering  manager 
by  the  imperious  vagaries  of  his  stars.  Shakspere,  of 
course,  knew  intimately  the  men  for  whom  his  plays  were 
written,  and  in  working  out  some  of  his  greatest  char- 
acters he  must  have  remembered  that  Burbage  was  to  act 
them.  But  the  Shaksperean  muse  was  not  of  that  sorry 
sort  which  produces  made-to-order  garments  to  fit  the 
tastes  and  idiosyncrasies  of  a  single  star.  His  plays,  ob- 
viously, were  written  for  a  great  company.  Therein  lay 
much  of  their  power  in  their  own  time,  and  therein  con- 
sists one  outstanding  difficulty  in  producing  them  to-day. 
And  what  is  true  of  Shakspere  is  true  also  of  the  Eliza- 
bethan drama  in  general.  Its  breadth  and  variety  may  be 
ascribed  in  no  slight  degree  to  the  fact  that  the  organiza- 
tion of  the  dramatic  companies  provided  the  great  poets 

1  See  Malone,   III,   224,   229,   202;   Chalmers,  Apology,  pp.   434-436; 
Stopes,  Burbage  and  Shakespeare's  Stage. 
*  Henslowe  Papers,  pp.  23-24. 


74  SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

of  a  great  age  with  ample  facilities  for  the  interpretation 
of  many  characters  and  many  phases  of  life.  Richard 
Burbage  and  Ned  Alleyn,  I  imagine,  would  have  had  little 
inclination  to  surrender  their  place  among  their  peers  for 
the  artificial  and  idolatrous  isolation  of  modern  starhood. 
The  Elizabethan  business  manager,  meanwhile  —  or 
perhaps  one  of  his  colleagues  upon  whom  the  charge  de- 
volved —  contrived  to  enforce  company  discipline  and  to 
provide  for  stability  of  organization.  Thus  Robert 
Dawes,  who  became  a  sharer  of  the  Lady  Elizabeth's 
Men  in  1614,  agreed  to  live  up  to  the  rules  on  penalty  of  a 
long  series  of  forfeits:  a  shilling  for  lateness  at  rehearsal, 
two  for  absence,  and  three  for  lateness  at  the  play,  unless 
excused  by  six  members  of  the  company.  Severer  of- 
fenses called  for  heavier  fines.  Dawes  agreed  to  pay  ten 
shillings  if  "by  the  Judgment  of  ffower  of  the  said  com- 
pany" he  should  be  found  intoxicated  at  playtime,  and 
twice  that  sum  for  unexcused  absence  at  the  play. 
Finally,  he  undertook  to  pay  the  heavy  forfeit  of  forty 
pounds  if  he  should  be  adjudged  guilty  of  abstracting 
company  property.^  It  is  a  fair  inference  that  these  regu- 
lations were  typical,  and  the  chances  are  that  they  were 
effective.  We  hear  much  of  the  actors  in  contemporary 
plays  and  pamphlets,  but  nothing  to  indicate  such  a  lack 
of  discipline  as  often  prevailed  after  the  Restoration, 
when  the  companies,  as  we  shall  see,  were  no  longer  self- 
governed.  One  difficulty,  however,  the  Elizabethans 
shared  with  their  successors,  —  that  of  keeping  distin- 
guished actors,  who  were  naturally  plied  with  tempting 
offers  from  competing  houses,  from  making  too  many 
changes  of  scene.  For  example,  there  is  the  case  of  Wil- 
liam Kemp,  one  of  the  most  popular  members  of  Shak- 
spere's  company,  who,  with  three  other  actors,  probably 
deserted  at  short  notice  to  join  the  Henslowe  forces; 
and  there  are  reports  of  entire  companies  taking  French 

1  Henslowe  Papers,  pp.  123-125. 


THE  PLAYERS  75 

leave  in  most  unceremonious  fashion,^  and,  consequently, 
of  theatres  left  without  players.  The  companies,  for  their 
part,  sought  to  meet  the  difficulty  in  the  first  place,  as  in 
the  case  of  Dawes,  by  having  their  actor-sharers  sign  a 
contract  for  the  usual  term  of  three  years.  Further,  the 
actor-sharer  usually  gave  the  company  a  heavy  bond,  to 
secure  it  against  breach  of  contract,  —  the  Duke  of 
York's  sharers,  for  example,  binding  themselves  jointly 
and  severally  in  1609  for  the  sum  of  £5,0x30.2  I  have  al- 
ready pointed  out  that  the  housekeepers  also  did  what 
they  could  to  hold  the  great  players,  by  giving  them  a 
share  in  the  proprietary  earnings.'  The  companies, 
finally,  sought  to  discourage  secession  by  arranging  for 
valuable  allowances  payable  only  upon  the  death  of  an 
actor-sharer  in  good  standing,  or  on  his  retirement  by 
general  consent.  The  Henslowe  documents  will  serve 
once  more  for  illustration.  It  was  probably  about  the 
year  1613  when  Charles  Massye,  a  sharer  in  the  Ad- 
miral's Men,  wrote  to  Edward  Alleyn  concerning  certain 
"  composisions  betwene  oure  compenye  that  if  any  one 
give  over  w"*  consent  of  his  fellowes,  he  is  to  receve  three 
score  and  ten  poundes  ...  If  any  on  dye  his  widow  or 
frendes  .  .  .  reseve  fyfte  poundes."  ■*  This  was  exactly 
the  sum  at  which  the  will  of  Alexander  Cook,  one  of 
Shakspere's  younger  colleagues,  valued  what  was  prob- 
ably his  half-share  in  the  company's  stock,  —  from  which 
it  would  follow,  incidentally,  that  Shakspere,  a  whole 
sharer,  probably  received  £100  when  he  retired  in  161 1.^ 
For  many  reasons  the  shareholding  system  fell  more  and 

^  Murray,  I,  53;  Wallace,  Englische  Studien,  XLIII,  349  fF.;  Shakespeare 
Society  Papers,  IV,  95-100. 

^  See  above,  p.  72,  n.  1.  Heavy  bonds  of  just  this  sort  were  exacted  also 
in  the  centuries  that  followed,  and  the  records  (in  Garrick's  time  and  later) 
show  that  they  were  not  infrequently  forfeited.  Cf.  Genest,  V,  183-184,  etc.; 
Apology,  I,  253. 

3  Cf.  p.  28,  n.  I. 

*  Papers,  p.  64. 

*  Chalmers,  in  Malone,  III,  482. 


76  SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

more  into  disuse  after  the  Restoration.  Few  actors,  there- 
fore, could  then  look  forward  to  retiring  allowances  upon 
shares.  In  some  few  instances  the  managers,  who  had 
become  their  employers  and  had  taken  over  almost  all  the 
ancient  prerogatives  of  the  companies,  granted  pensions 
to  old  actors.  But  such  cases  were  comparatively  rare, 
and  new  measures  had  to  be  devised  —  of  which  more 
later.^ 

The  changes  that  came  with  the  Restoration  were  strik- 
ing indeed.  Whereas  in  Shakspere's  time  the  companies 
selected  and  produced  their  own  plays,  made  their  own 
rules,  chose  their  own  officers,  and,  in  general,  carried  on 
a  cooperative  enterprise  under  democratic  control,  these 
conditions  were  generally  reversed  after  1662.  D'Ave- 
nant  and  Killigrew,  to  whom  was  granted  the  monopoly 
of  the  stage,  and  who  were  not  actors  but  merely  court 
favorites,  built  their  own  theatres,  wrote  their  own  plays, 
and  produced  them.  Their  problems  and  methods  prop- 
erly belong  in  a  study  of  the  managers  rather  than  of  the 
players,  and  I  shall  therefore  have  little  to  say  of  them  at 
this  point.  Suffice  it  to  recall  that  D'Avenant's  actors 
contractually  acknowledged  him  as  their  "Master  and 
Superior,"  who  had  the  sole  right  to  appoint  their  suc- 
cessors upon  the  death  of  any  sharers  among  them  —  a 
far  cry  indeed  from  the  days  of  company  independ- 
ence! 2 

Yet  the  changes  wrought  by  the  Restoration  were  not 
so  revolutionary  as  would  at  first  appear.  The  greatest 
encroachment  upon  the  liberties  of  the  companies  was  the 
abrogation  of  their  right  to  direct  their  own  affairs,  but  in 
appointing  the  new  managers  Charles  II,  after  all,  was 
following  a  precedent  set  by  his  father.  In  1639  Charles  I 

^  See  below,  pp.  98-100. 

*  See  above,  pp.  3'2.-2^.  At  the  same  time  Charles  Hart,  as  deputy  and 
acting  manager  for  Killigrew  at  the  King's  House,  was  "chief  of  the  house" 
and  "sole  governor."  Public  Record  Office  Documents,  London,  L.  C.  7/1, 
f.  7.    Cf.  Life  oj  Jo  Hayns,  1701,  p.  23. 


THE  PLAYERS  77 

had  granted  D'Avenant  a  patent  to  build  a  playhouse, 
and  to  "entertain,  govern^  privilege,  and  keep"  such 
players  as  he  saw  fit;  and  these  were  to  "obey"  him  and 
"  follow  his  orders  and  directions."  ^  The  uncertainties  of 
the  time  prevented  D'Avenant  from  proceeding  with  his 
enterprise  at  the  moment,  but  this  grant,  and  the  papers 
covering  the  request  for  a  similar  license  at  the  Salisbury 
Court  two  years  earlier,^  show  that  the  days  of  company 
independence  were  numbered  even  before  the  closing  of 
the  theatres  in  1642.  In  another  chapter  I  shall  sketch 
the  relations  between  the  theatres  and  the  court.  Here 
we  may  note  merely  that  an  ever  more  rigid  control  from 
above,  which  finally  involved  the  loss  of  company  inde- 
pendence —  the  supplanting  of  the  free  theatre  by  a 
royal  monopoly  —  was  the  price  the  players  paid  for  the 
increasingly  valuable  patronage  accorded  them  by  the 
Stuarts. 

With  the  Restoration,  then,  the  dramatic  company  as 
such  is  no  longer  of  first  importance.  In  dealing  with  the 
players  of  that  time,  therefore,  and  with  those  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  we  shall  be  primarily  concerned  with 
the  fortunes  of  individuals,  —  stars  and  supers,  dancers 
and  tragedians,  as  the  case  may  be,  —  and,  to  be  sure, 
with  the  relations  among  them  and  their  fellows,  and  the 
public  and  managers;  but  always  with  individuals  rather 
than  groups.  It  will  appear  at  once  that  old  traditions 
died  hard.  And  yet  there  were  new  developments.  The 
boy  actor,  for  example,  was  soon  crowded  out  by  a  new 
and  interesting  appearance  in  the  dramatic  scheme  of 
things,  —  the  actress;  and  the  benefit  system  was  carried 
over  from  the  playwrights  to  the  players.  Before  going 
further,  let  us  see  what  the  players  earned,  and  how  they 
earned  it. 

^  Malone,  III,  94-95;  Fitzgerald,  I,  73;  Collier, ///j/ory  oj  English  Dra- 
matic Poetry  .  .  .  and  .  .  .  Annals  oJ  the  Stage,  td.  1879,11,33. 
*  Shakespeare  Society  Papers,  1849,  I^j  95' 


78  SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

The  defendants  in  the  Globe  and  Blackfriars  case  of 
1635  asserted  that  the  actor-sharers  of  these  theatres  had 
earned  £180  each  in  the  preceding  year.  The  actors 
themselves  modestly  placed  their  average  gain  at  some 
£50,  and  the  Lord  Chamberlain  was  inclined  to  believe 
thern.^  The  records  of  Elizabethan  theatrical  litigation 
are  notoriously  full  of  exaggerated  and  misleading  state- 
ments, but  here  as  elsewhere  one  can  approximate  the 
truth  by  striking  a  balance  between  extremes.  And  there 
is  evidence  from  other  sources  ^  which  justifies  the  con- 
clusion that  successful  actor-sharers  of  the  first  decades  of 
the  seventeenth  century  did  not  earn  above  £100  a  year. 
In  view  of  the  tremendous  purchasing  power  of  money  in 
those  days,  however,  this  was  a  substantial  income,  even 
when  it  was  not  augmented,  as  in  Shakspere's  case,  from 
other  sources.  After  the  Restoration  the  value  of  money 
declined  sharply,  but  players'  incomes  did  not  increase  in 
proportion.  Indeed,  there  is  every  reason  to  believe  that 
they  did  not  fare  nearly  so  well  as  their  predecessors. 

Certain  traditional  reports,  to  be  sure,  credit  the  Res- 
toration players  with  huge  earnings.  The  Hisioria  His- 
trionica  (1699),  for  instance,  has  it  that  for  several  years 
after  1660  Hart  and  other  leading  players  at  the  King's 
Theatre  cleared  £1,000  a  season,^  —  a  quite  impossible 
story,  and  one  that  is  contradicted  flatly  by  every  other 
bit  of  evidence  available.  Malone  and  Bellchambers  put 
Hart's  salary  at  £3  a  week,  with  an  additional  6j.  3^.  for 
every  acting  day  (or  between  £50  and  £60  a  year)  from 
the  earnings  of  his  share,^  and  this  is  probably  a  fair  esti- 
mate, for  it  is  known  definitely  that  the  salary  of  Better- 
ton,  after  he  resigned  his  managerial  authority  in  1705, 

1  Halliwell-Phillipps,  Outlines,  I,  313  fF. 

2  See  above,  p.  22,  n.  i. 

3  Reprinted  in  Lowe's  edition  of  Gibber's  Apology,  I,  xxxii;  cf.  Malone, 
III,  172,  note  9. 

*  Malone,  III,  179,  note;  Bellchambers,  in  his  edition  of  Gibber's 
Apology,  1822,  p.  74;  cf.  Gildon,  Lije  oj  Betterton,  p.  9. 


Mrs.  Elizabeth  Barry  as  Zara 


THE  PLAYERS  79 

was  but  four  or  five  pounds  a  week.^  Betterton  had  long 
since  wearied  of  the  burden  resting  upon  him.  "More  or 
less  thin  Houses,"  says  Cibber,  "have  been  the  fate  of  the 
most  prosperous  Actors  ever  since  I  remember  the  Stage," 
—  and  Betterton  had  not  escaped  the  usual  fate.  Thin 
houses  had  compelled  the  two  companies  to  join  forces  for 
the  first  time  in  1682,  but  even  without  competition  the 
fortunes  of  the  United  Companies  languished  still  fur- 
ther. The  managers  thereupon  attempted  to  make  both 
ends  meet  by  reducing  salaries,  only  to  bring  upon  them- 
selves the  revolt  of  Betterton,  who,  with  a  dozen  of  his 
colleagues,  won  a  new  license  from  King  William  and  set 
up  at  Lincoln's  Inn  Fields  in  1695.  It  is  significant  that, 
at  the  very  beginning  of  this  enterprise,  Samuel  Sand- 
ford,  one  of  the  actors  who  joined  it,  refused  to  accept  the 
then  very  problematical  income  of  a  sharer  in  lieu  of  a 
regular  salary.  According  to  Anthony  i^ston,^  "he  would 
not  be  concern'd  with  Mr.  Betterton,  Mrs.  Barry,  &c.  as  a 
Sharer  in  the  Revolt  from  Drury  Lane  to  Lincoln's  Inn- 
Fields;  but  said,  This  is  my  Agreement.  —  To  Samuel 
Sandford,  Gentleman,  Threescore  Shillings  a  Week.  .  .  . 
For  which  Cave  Underhill,  who  was  a  f  Sharer,  would 
often  jeer  Sandford;  saying,  Samuel  Sandford,  Gent,  my 
Man."  Yet  ten  years  later,  as  we  have  seen,  Betterton 
himself  was  glad  enough  to  give  up  his  ill-paying  shares 
and  his  managerial  responsibility  for  the  comforts  of  a 
regular  salary. 

Unfortunately  for  the  actors,  however,  theatrical  sal- 
aries in  those  days  were  too  often  regular  only  in  name,  — 
sometimes,  indeed,  regular  only  in  that  payment  was  al- 
ways late  and  never  complete.  Colley  Cibber  was  a 
young  actor  at  Drury  Lane  when  Betterton  and  his  asso- 

^  Malone,  III,  179,  note;  Lowe,  Betterton,  pp.  178-180;  Bellchambers, 
p.  116. 

^  BrieJ  Supplement,  reprinted  by  Lowe,  Apology,  II,  306-307,  and  by 
W.  Nicholson,  Anthony  Aston,  1920,  pp.  83-84.  Aston  came  upon  the  stage 
about  1700. 


8o  SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

dates  seceded,  and  his  memories  of  that  time  are  vivid. 
As  an  instance  of  the  niggardHness  of  the  patentees  of  the 
United  Companies  he  recalls  that  they  refused  one  of  their 
actresses,  a  Mrs.  Butler,  an  advance  of  ten  shillings  over 
her  weekly  salary  of  forty,  and  so  they  lost  her  services. 
In  his  time  as  manager,  says  Colley,  he  would  gladly  have 
paid  an  equally  good  actress  four  times  as  much.  He 
adds  that  upon  Betterton's  secession  the  Drury  Lane 
patentees  had  to  make  a  virtue  of  necessity.  In  order  to 
keep  at  least  some  of  their  staff,  they  doubled  the  pay  of 
certain  actors  who  had  been  earning  £2  a  week,  and  ad- 
vanced Cibber  himself  from  twenty  shillings  to  thirty. 
These  advances,  however,  cannot  have  been  a  very  se- 
rious matter  to  the  patentees,  if  the  rest  of  Gibber's  tale  is 
true.  Against  the  evil  of  thin  houses,  he  says,  the  Drury 
Lane  owners  had  "found  out  a  Relief  which  the  new 
House  were  not  yet  Masters  of,  viz.  never  to  pay  their 
People  when  the  Money  did  not  come  in;  nor  then 
neither,  but  in  such  Proportions  as  suited  their  Con- 
veniency.  I  my  self  was  one  of  the  many  who  for  acting 
six  Weeks  together  never  received  one  Day's  Pay;  and 
for  some  Years  after  seldom  had  above  half  our  nominal 
Sallaries."  Betterton's  new  house  also  "held  it  not  above 
one  Season  more,  before  they  were  reduced  to  the  same 
Expedient  of  making  the  like  scanty  Payments."  ^  Even 
so,  the  new  theatre  could  not  survive,  and  by  1707  the 
two  companies  were  once  more  united.  And  thereupon 
—  once  more  according  to  our  laureate  —  the  patentees 
"fell  into  their  former  Politicks  of  thinking  every  Shilling 
taken  from  a  hired  Actor  as  so  much  clear  Gain  to  the 
Proprietor."  Not  content  with  paying  irregularly,  they 
now  sought  to  reduce  salaries  to  the  old  level.  Indeed, 
Colley  was  told  that  if  his  salary  were  reduced  by  ten 
shillings  it  would  still  be  higher  "than  ever  Goodman 
had,  who  was  a  better  Actor  than  I  could  pretend  to  be," 

»  Apology,  I,  164-165,  184,  193,  231-232. 


THE  PLAYERS  8i 

yet  had  been  paid  only  forty  shillings.  Gibber  replied 
that  Goodman  had  been  so  pinched  for  money  that  he 
turned  highwayman  to  augment  his  income;  and  this  ex- 
postulation saved  him  from  a  cut,  but  not  others.^  It  is 
clear,  in  short,  that  salaries  were  small  and  uncertain,  and 
that  Goodman  would  not  have  been  the  only  player 
forced  to  eke  out  his  income  in  unconventional  fashion, 
had  there  not  been  some  other  way  out.  Fortunately 
there  was,  for  by  this  time  the  players,  as  well  as  the 
poets,  were  looking  to  their  benefits  as  the  one  substantial 
source  of  pecuniary  comfort. 

Actors'  benefits  were  unknown  in  Shakspere's  day; 
at  least  no  mention  of  them  has  been  found,  and  it  is 
difficult  to  believe  that  they  would  have  escaped  notice  in 
plays  and  other  documents  of  the  time.     Gibber  and 
many  others  after  him  have  held  that  Mrs.  Barry,  in 
King  James  II's  time,  was  the  first  player  to  be  granted  a 
benefit,  —  this  "in  Consideration  of  the  extraordinary 
Applause  that  had  followed  her  Performance,"  —  and 
that  she  alone  enjoyed  this  privilege  until  after  the  di- 
vision of  the  United  Companies  in  1695.2   The  observa- 
tions of  a  certain  indefatigable  theatre-goer,  however, 
prove  that  the  custom  was  older  than  Gibber  supposed; 
for  on  March  21,  1667,  Samuel  Pepys  recorded  a  visit  to 
the  Duke's  Theatre,  where  he  "unexpectedly"  saw  "  only  -OjC 
the  young  men  and  women  of  the  house  act;  they  having 
liberty  to  act  for  their  own  profit  on  Wednesdays- and- 
■bridays  this  LentT^  Again,  on  September  28th_of  the. 
next  year,  a  certain  lady's  maid  came  tcLinfbr-m-4i4ni, 
^'that  the  women's  day  at  the  playhouseis, to-day^  and 
that   therefore   [hel   rnust   be   there   to   encrease  iJifiit- 
prufic."   The  gallant  Pepys  did  not  fail  them,  and  he  re- 
ports    the  house  for  the  women^s  sake,  mighty  full," 

^  II,  61-64.  The  salary  of  Mrs.  Jane  Rogers  was  reduced  from  four 
pounds  to  three:  see  The  Memorial  of  Jane  Rogers  Humbly  Submitted  to  the 
Town,  London,  171 1. 

2  Apology,  I,  161 ;  II,  67. 


82  SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

Meanwhile,  the  young  actors  of  the  King's  House  played 
for  their  own  benefit  as  early  as  1677,  for  in  the  Epilogue 
of  John  Banks's  Rival  Kings  (first  presented  there  in  that 
year)  their  spokesman  told  the  audience  that 

The  great  Dons  of  our  House 
Themselves  would  fain  have  had  the  Play  from  us, 
But  frankly  and  generously  our  Author  stakes 
His  purse  and  credit  rather  for  our  sakes.^ 

It  would  seem,  then,  that  joint  benefits  were  first 
granted  to  those  who  needed  them  most,  —  the  badly 
paid  beginners.  Pepys,  to  be  sure,  noted  (as  early  as 
1661)  that  some  of  the  "theatre  actors  are  indeed  grown 
very  proud  and  rich,"  ^  but  not  so  the  young  players  — 
for  many  years  after!  Cibber  recalled  that  in  1688,  when 
he  first  tried  himself  upon  the  boards,  it  was  the  paten- 
tees' rule  not  to  pay  young  players  any  wages  whatsoever 
until  after  a  half-year's  probation.  Indeed,  Colley  had  to 
wait  nine  months  altogether  before  his  talents  were  re- 
warded to  the  extent  of  ten  shillings  a  week,  and  even 
then  he  might  have  had  to  wait  longer  had  not  luck  been 
with  him.  The  story  runs  that  Betterton  noticed  a  blun- 
der of  Colley 's  —  who  was  not  yet  on  salary  —  and 
ordered  that  he  be  fined  five  shillings.  The  sentence  was 
carried  out  after  Betterton  had  given  instructions  that 
the  ten-shilling  salary  be  entered  on  the  books  simul- 
taneously with  the  fine.*  And  young  Gibber's  start  was 
scarcely  humbler  than  the  average.  Robert  Wilks  and 
Nance  Oldfield  first  appeared  about  two  years  after  he 
did,  each  at  fifteen  shillings  a  week.^  Almost  a  hundred 
years  later,  in  1782,  Mrs.  Jordan  began  her  English 
career  on  the  boards  with  a  salary  of  fifteen  shillings, 
while  Henderson   (before  1776)  played  at  Bath  for  a 

1  Cf.  Genest,  I,  152.  ^  February  23,  1661. 

3  Apology,  I,  181,  and  note. 

*  Chetwood,  General  History  oj  the  Stage,  1749,  p.  23a;  Bellchambers  in  his 
edition  of  the  Apology,  p.  508. 


THE  PLAYERS  83 

guinea  a  week;^  and  these  were  players  whose  talents  won 
recognition  almost  from  the  very  beginning.  The  lower 
orders  of  the  eighteenth-century  "hirelings"  had  but  a 
sad  time  of  it.  Tom  Brown  sneered  at  their  "  ten  shillings 
a  week"  early  in  the  century,  and  Garrick,  in  1765,  em- 
ployed some  of  them  at  but  two  shillings  more.^  And,  as 
we  have  seen,  it  appears  that  even  these  small  wages 
were  in  arrears  more  often  than  not,  until  Cibber  and  his 
colleagues  took  over  the  management.  It  was  during  the 
decade  before  that  event,^  according  to  our  apologist, 
that  the  actors,  rather  than  go  to  law,  preferred  "  to  com- 
pound their  Arrears  for  their  being  admitted  to  the 
Chance  of  having  them  made  up  by  the  Proceeds  of  a 
Benefit-Play,"  —  the  result  being  that  the  patentees 
kept  the  actors  in  arrears  thereafter,  even  when  they 
could  afford  to  pay,  in  order  to  minimize  the  chances  of  a 
revolt  "while  their  Hopes  of  being  clear'd  off  by  a 
Benefit  were  depending."  Cibber  adds  that  in  a  year  or 
two  these  benefits  became  so  profitable  that  they  finally 
became  "the  chief  x'\rticle  in  every  Actor's  Agreement."  ^ 
But  not  all  benefits  proved  successful;  and  even  when 
they  did,  the  inferior  actors  naturally  did  not  profit  to  any 
such  extent  as  the  popular  favorites.  Two  or  three 
young  players  sometimes  combined  forces  for  a  benefit 
and  divided  the  profits  that  remained  after  the  enforced 
payment  of  one-third  or  one-half  to  the  management.^ 
It  will  appear  presently  that  trouble  ensued  when  the 
managers  tried  to  levy  in  this  fashion  upon  the  profits  of 
the  older  actors.  Meanwhile,  even  when  the  actors  did 
not  object,  there  were  occasions  when  the  public  did  not 
respond,  and  from  time  to  time  a  second  benefit  had  to  be 

^  Public  and  Private  Life  oj  Mrs.  Jordan,  p.  6;  Wilkinson,  The  Wandering 
Patentee,  II,  132  ff.;  O'KeefFe,  Recollections,  I,  347. 

2  Tom  Brown,  Works,  1720,  III,  39;  Notes  and  Queries,  6th  Series,XI,  461. 
^  From  about  1695  ^'^  ^7°9' 

*  Apology,  II,  67. 

*  Genest,  V,  69,  287;  Fitzgerald,  II,  445.   Moreover,  the  actors,  like  the 
playwrights,  had  to  pay  the  house  charges  on  benefit  nights  (see  above,  p.  37). 


84  SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

arranged  to  make  up  for  earlier  deficiencies.^  None  the 
less,  Gibber's  general  statement  as  to  the  importance  of 
the  benefit  to  the  players  is  supported  by  the  facts.  Many 
an  actor  who  cleared  fifty,  seventy-five,  or  a  hundred 
pounds  by  a  benefit,  had  much  less  than  these  amounts  by 
way  of  salary,  and  players  of  established  reputation  fre- 
quently earned  much  more  than  a  hundred  pounds  by 
their  benefits.  In  1709,  for  instance,  Betterton  drew  £76 
from  the  box-office  at  his  benefit,  and  £450  more  from  his 
friends  and  the  public  in  general,  who  bought  his  tickets 
at  prices  ranging  from  one  to  ten  guineas,  "supposing 
that  he  designed  not  to  act  any  more."  But  he  did  appear 
once  more,  the  next  year,  and  the  two  benefits  together 
are  supposed  to  have  netted  him  almost  a  thousand 
\/  pounds.  Richard  Estcourt's  benefit,  again,  in  ^229, 
(  brought  him  £51  in  house  money,  plus  £200  "by  guin- 
eas^^  trom  his  triends7~and  Gibber,  Wilks,  Mills,  and 
IVance  uldtield  profited  in  "sums  ranging  between  £75 
and  £200.2  Some  years  later,  Mrs.  Oldfield's  benefits, 
according  to  Gibber,  netted  her  300  guineas  each,  no 
house  charges  being  deducted  in  her  case.^  Another  ac- 
tress who  made  the  most  of  her  benefits  was  the  famous 
Mrs.  Bellamy.  In  describing  one  of  these,  she  writes  that 
the  Duchess  of  Queensberry  took  every  available  box  and 
two  hundred  and  fifty  tickets  besides;  at  another,  if  her 
memory  served  her  correctly,  she  cleared  "upwards  of 
eleven  hundred  pounds."  ^ 

^  Genest  (IV,  553)  quotes  from  the  Publick  Advertiser  of  June  20,  1759: 
"The  benefit  for  the  distressed  Actors,  last  night,  did  not  answer  so  well  as 
was  expected;  therefore  by  particular  desire  another  play  will  be  performed 
June  16."  Occasionally  the  proprietors  bought  up  the  benefits  of  minor 
players,  allowing  them  instead  a  flat  payment  of  from  thirty  to  fifty  pounds. 
Observations  on  Differences  at  Covent  Garden,  p.  59;  O'Keeffe,  II,  7;  British 
Museum  playbills,  Covent  Garden,  June  12,  1790,  etc. 

2  Baggs's  Advertisement,  1709  (reprinted  in  Edwin's  Eccentricities,  I,  219- 
224);  Gildon,  Li/e  0/  Betterton,  p.  1 1 ;  Bellchambers,  in  his  edition  of  Apology, 
p.  117;  cf.  Dutton  Cook,  Book  oj  the  Play,  3d  ed.,  pp.  273-275. 

^  Apology,  II,  71. 

^  Life  oJ  G.  A.  Bellamy,  3d  ed.,  1785,  I,  64;   II,  198. 


:\r;  sn  i 


THE  PLAYERS  85 

Such  sums,  of  course,  could  not  be  raised  without  un- 
usual exertions,  and  many  were  the  devices  used  to  win 
substantial  public  support  upon  these  occasions.  Fred- 
erick Reynolds  tells  us  how  delightedly  the  audience 
hailed  the  comedian  Shuter  one  evening  in  or  about  1770 
when  Othello  was  played.  After  the  performance  Shuter 
"put  his  head  through  the  hole  in  the  green  curtain  and 
facetiously  [said]  to  the  audience  'Remember  me  to-mor- 
row'; on  which  immediately  followed  a  loud  laugh," 
after  which  young  Reynolds  was  informed  that  the  come- 
dian's benefit  was  on  the  program  for  the  next  night. ^ 
Nor  did  the  audiences  object  to  paying  the  advanced 
prices  frequently  charged  on  benefit  nights.  It  is  written, 
for  example,  that  at  Mrs.  Pritchard's  benefit  in  1768  the 
house  "was  crouded  with  the  first  People  of  Distinction, 
at  advanced  Prices."  ^  Further,  to  help  the  good  work 
along  and  provide  places  for  the  largest  possible  number, 
playgoers  cheerfully  sat  upon  the  stage  on  such  occasions, 
or  agreeably  permitted  others  to  do  so  and  thereby  spoil 
their  view  of  things.  James  Ralph  was  but  one  of  many 
writers  who  objected  strenuously  to  the  beaux  on  the 
stage  —  one  of  the  most  ancient  of  theatrical  nuisances  ^ 
—  but  he  had  no  unkind  words  for  the  harmless  stage- 
dwellers  of  benefit  nights.  His  animadversions,  says  he, 
are  not  "  to  be  understood,  as  any  Reflection  upon  that 
Part  of  an  Audience,  who  are  cramm'd  behind  the  Scenes 
of  a  Benefit-Night:  The  Stage  being  for  that  Time  for  the 
Use  of  the  House,  and  no  body  coming  with  a  Design  to 
be  amus'd,  there  can  be  no  Ofi'ence."  At  all  events,  no 
attempt  was  made  to  do  away  with  this  aspect  of  things 
at  benefits  until  1762,  and  it  survived  even  after  that.* 

^  Life  and  Times,  I,  i6. 
2  Victor,  III,  127. 

2  Cf.  Lowe,  Betterton,  pp.  40-41 ;  T.  S.  Graves,  Studies  in  Philology, 
XVIII,  170-172. 

*  The  Taste  oj  the  Town,  I'JT)'^,  pp.  145-146. 


86  SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

Shuter,  as  we  have  seen,  lost  no  opportunity  to  adver- 
tise his  benefits,  but  he  also  took  special  pains  to  give  his 
audiences  their  money's  worth.  Tate  Wilkinson,  who 
made  his  first  professional  appearance  at  Shuter's  benefit 
in  1757,  tells  how  Shuter  gave  him  the  part  of  the  Fine 
Gentleman  in  Lethe,  and  then,  dissatisfied  with  the  re- 
sources of  the  Covent  Garden  wardrobe,  carried  his 
young  friend  off  to  Monmouth  Street,  where,  "for  two 
guineas,  I  was  equipped  with  the  loan  of  a  heavy,  rich, 
glaring,  spangled,  embroidered  velvet  suit  of  clothes,  and 
in  this  full  dress,  fit  for  the  King  in  Hamlet,  ...  I  was 
produced  on  the  centre  of  Covent-Garden  boards  as  a 
performer."  ^  Other  players  had  recourse  to  other  de- 
vices to  please  their  patrons.  For  one  thing,  they  were 
able  to  count  upon  their  friends,  the  playwrights,  and 
many  a  new  play  or  after-piece  was  specially  written  for  a 
first  production  at  some  actor's  benefit.  Thus  Fielding  in 
1733  wrote  for  Miss  Raftor's  benefit  an  after-piece  called 
Deborah,^  and  twenty  years  later  Foote  "presented  Mr. 
Macklin  with  his  spick  span  new  farce  of  the  Englishman 
in  Paris,  for  his  benefit."  ^  In  the  same  spirit  Richard 
Cumberland  gave  The  Arab  to  Henderson  in  1785  (be- 
sides putting  "some  guineas  into  his  hand  for  the  few 
places  [he]  had  occupied  in  the  theatre  "),*  while  O'Keeffe, 
in  1791,  wrote  his  lively  farce  entitled  Wild  Oats  for  first 
performance  at  the  benefit  of  Lewis. ^  A  number  of  plays 
first  produced  in  this  way  were  afterwards  taken  over  by 
the  managers  and  became  successful  stock  pieces,  but, 
shortly  before  the  close  of  the  eighteenth  century,  trouble 
arose  in  this  connection.  The  actors  at  Covent  Garden 
complained  that  the  proprietors  had  effectually  pre- 
vented them  from  producing  novelties  at  their  benefits  by 

1  Memoirs,  1790,  I,  112-113. 

^  Cross,  I,  146. 

^  Wilkinson,  Memoirs,  II,  60. 

*  Cumberland,  Memoirs,  II,  207;  Genest,  VI,  361;  Oulton,  I,  139, 

^  Covent  Garden  playbills,  British  Museum. 


THE  PLAYERS  87 

claiming  all  such  pieces  as  "their  future  property,"  with- 
out compensation  to  the  author.  To  this  charge  the  pro- 
prietors replied  that  such  a  rule  had  become  necessary, 
because  a  great  amount  of  "literary  trash"  had  been  let 
loose  upon  the  public  during  successive  benefit  seasons, 
"each  Performer  being  careless  of  the  merits  of  the  Piece, 
so  that  he  might  have  the  advantage  of  its  novelty." 
They  add,  however,  that  they  did  allow  authors  a  com- 
pensation for  pieces  adopted  by  the  management  after  a 
first  performance  at  a  benefit.^ 

Others  besides  the  playwrights  helped  the  actors  at 
benefit  time.  We  have  already  noticed  how  the  Duchess 
of  Queensberry  supported  Mrs.  Bellamy  with  her  name 
and  her  guineas,  —  and  there  were  others.  Boswell  tells 
how  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds,  in  1775,  promised  Mrs.  i\bing- 
ton  to  bring  a  company  of  wits  to  her  benefit,  for  whom  he 
reserved  forty  places  in  the  boxes.  Boswell  and  Johnson 
were  of  the  party,  the  Doctor  having  accepted  Mrs.  Ab- 
ington's  urgent  invitation.  "  I  told  her  I  could  not  hear," 
he  said,  "but  she  insisted  so  much  on  my  coming  that  it 
would  have  been  brutal  to  have  refused  her."  And  so, 
"as  he  could  neither  see  nor  hear  at  such  a  distance  from 
the  stage,  he  was  wrapped  up  in  grave  abstraction,  and 
seemed  quite  a  cloud  amidst  all  the  sunshine  of  glitter 
and  gaiety."  But  he  sat  out  the  five-act  play  and  the 
farce  after  it,  discoursing  the  while,  between  acts,  upon 
prologue  writing.  A  few  days  later,  "one  of  the  com- 
pany" (probably  Boswell  himself)  rallied  him  about  his 
silence  at  the  play,  and  wanted  to  know  why  he  had  gone 
when  he  could  neither  see  nor  hear.  Johnson  gave  him  a 
characteristic  reply:  "Because,  Sir,  she  is  a  favourite  of 
the  publick;  and  when  the  publick  cares  the  thousandth 
part  for  you  that  it  does  for  her,  I  will  go  to  your  benefit 
too."  2 

^  Statement  of  Differences  and  Observations  on  the  Statement,  pp.  38-39. 
*  Boswell's  Johnson,  ed.  G.  B.  Hill,  II,  321,  324-325,  330. 


88  SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

The  players,  moreover,  loyally  supported  one  another. 
Mrs.  Barry  and  Mrs.  Bracegirdle  had  both  retired  before 
1709,  but  both  came  back  to  the  boards  that  year  to  play 
at  Betterton's  benefit.^  Quin,  who  was  at  least  as  good  a 
friend  as  he  was  an  actor,  came  back  year  after  year  to  act 
at  Ryan's  benefits;  Cave  Underbill  and  Gentleman  Smith 
did  as  much  for  their  friends,  Pinkethman  and  King;  and 
Colley  Cibber  returned  to  the  stage  in  his  old  age  to  act 
Shallow  for  the  benefit  of  his  son  Theophilus.^  Nor  were 
these  acts  of  kindness  merely  such  as  would  naturally  pass 
between  father  and  son  or  between  stars  who  happened 
also  to  be  close  friends.  Famous  actors  and  actresses  gave 
their  services  just  as  liberally  in  support  of  their  lesser 
colleagues,  particularly  when  misfortune  or  need  called. 
Mrs.  Siddons,  for  example,  on  a  visit  to  Cork  in  1783, 
played  three  times  out  of  nine  or  ten  without  profit  to  her- 
self, one  benefit  going  to  a  local  charity  and  two  to  fellow 
players.^ 

A  less  pleasant  aspect  of  these  benefits  has  already  been 
mentioned  in  connection  with  the  playwrights  as  well  as 
the  players,  —  that  of  which  Genest  speaks  as  "the  de- 
grading manner  in  which  the  performers  used  to  solicit  the 
attendance  "  of  the  public.^  But,  as  Tate  Wilkinson  says, 
"use  had  rendered  it  familiar,"  and  so  the  great  majority 
of  theatre-goers  probably  did  not  regard  the  custom  as 
any  more  degrading  than  did  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  or 
Dr.  Johnson.  Wilkinson,  at  any  rate,  as  manager  of  the 
theatre  at  York,  found  that  the  players  objected  stren- 
uously when  he  sought  to  do  away  with  the  old  custom  in 
1766.  He  persisted,  however,  and  finally  gained  his  point 
long  before  a  similar  reform  was  achieved  in  London  and 
elsewhere.^  One  reason  for  the  longevity  of  the  practice  is 

^  Lowe,  Betlerton,  p.  1 80. 

*  Doran,  II,  42;  Life  oj  G.  A.  Bellamy,  3d  ed.,  1785,  I,  59;  Apology  Jor  the 
Life  oJ  Mr.  T[heophilus]  C[Mer\,  1740,  p.  154;  Genest,  II,  468;  VI,  483. 

^  Genest,  VI,  331.  *  Genest,  VI,  520. 

*  Memoirs,  IV,  65-68.   See  above,  p.  45,  n.  3. 


THE  PLAYERS  89 

that,  in  the  days  of  old,  relations  between  the  players  and 
their  audiences  —  nobility  and  commoners  alike  —  were, 
as  a  rule,  much  more  intimate,  direct,  and  personal  than 
they  are  at  present.  Distinguished  performxers  belonged 
to  the  public  in  a  sense  that  does  not  hold  even  in  this  day 
of  skilful  theatrical  advertising.  Thus  they  could  always 
bring  their  professional  complaints  before  the  public  with 
the  assurance  that  a  sympathetic  and  effective  hearing 
would  be  accorded  them,  and  they  could  rely  upon  its 
generosity  at  benefit  time. 

Mrs.  Clive,  writing  to  Garrick  in  1769  to  thank  him  for 
offering  to  play  one  of  his  best  characters  at  her  benefit, 
gives  a  case  in  point.  "I  have  every  day,"  she  writes, 
"fresh  instances  of  the  public  affection  for  me.  Lord 
Clive  has  behaved  in  a  noble  maner;  he  sent  me  the  most 
polite  note,  and  fifty  pounds  for  his  box."  ^  And  if  this 
was  a  gift  in  the  noble  manner,  there  were  others  even 
more  in  the  tmly  grand  style.  Anthony  Aston  tells  how 
the  Dukes  of  Dorset  and  Devonshire,  Lord  Halifax,  and 
other  celebrated  wits  and  gentlemen  met  one  fine  day 
over  a  bottle  and  paid  tribute  to  the  "virtuous  Behav- 
iour" of  Mrs.  Bracegirdle.  "Come,"  says  Lord  Halifax, 
"why  do  we  not  present  this  incomparable  Woman  with 
something  worthy  her  Acceptance?"  And  thereupon 
"his  Lordship  deposited  200  Guineas,  which  the  rest 
made  up  800,  and  sent  to  her,  with  Encomiums  on  her 
Virtue."  ^  Somewhat  later,  in  17 13,  when  Booth  made 
his  great  hit  in  Cato^  we  hear  that  one  day  while  the  play 
was  acting,  the  boxes  made  up  a  purse  of  fifty  guineas, 
which  was  sent  to  him  with  compliments  upon  his  "dying 
so  bravely  in  the  Cause  of  Liberty."  ^  Many  similar  in- 
cidents might  be  related,  but  these  are  typical.  Rich 
purses,  fine  clothes,  and  other  valuable  presents  were 

^  Garrick's  Private  Correspondence,  I,  341. 

*  BrieJ  Supplement  in  Lowe,  Apology,  II,  305. 

3  Apology,  II,  130;  cf.  Spence's  Anecdotes,  pp.  46-47. 


90  SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

given  to  the  players  by  admiring  audiences  to  the  very 
end  of  the  eighteenth  century,  —  a  subscription  of  one 
hundred  guineas  to  Mrs.  Siddons  in  1782,  "from  the 
gentlemen  of  the  bar,"  being  one  of  the  most  notable 
tributes  of  later  times. ^ 

In  connection  with  the  audience's  gift  to  Booth  in  Cato, 
it  is  interesting  to  observe  how  the  managers  —  Cibber, 
Wilks,  and  Dogget  —  responded.  Cibber  observes  that 
Dogget  chose  to  look  upon  the  presentation  from  the 
boxes  "as  a  sort  of  a  Tory  Triumph  which  they  had  no 
Pretence  to."  He  therefore  proposed  a  gift  of  the  same 
amount  from  the  management,  to  restore  Cato  as  the 
"Champion  for  Liberty"  —  and  to  ward  off  certain  diffi- 
culties which  he  foresaw!  But  the  one  hundred  guineas 
did  not  still  Booth's  ambition  for  a  share  in  the  manage- 
ment. Indeed,  with  the  aid  of  his  powerful  friend  Lord 
Bolingbroke,  he  became  one  of  the  patentees  before  the 
year  was  up.^  The  motives  for  this  particular  managerial 
gift  may  have  been  rather  complicated;  but  the  records  of 
the  Cibber  management  show  that  it  had  the  good  sense 
to  allow  certain  extra  rewards  (without  ulterior  motives) 
to  players  who  had  done  good  work.  Fitzgerald  ^  prints  a 
document  signed  by  the  patentees  on  September  14, 1727, 
which  orders  the  treasurer  to  "charge  thirteen  shils.  and 
fourpence  every  acting  day,  to  reward  such  actors  at  the 
end  of  the  season,  as  may  appear  to  have  deserved  any 
reward  for  extraordinary  services."  It  may  have  been 
from  such  a  fund  that  the  managers,  according  to  Cibber, 
gave  Nance  Oldfield  a  present  of  fifty  guineas  "upon  her 
extraordinary  Action  in  the  Provok'd  Husband.''  ^   Booth 

1  Chetwood,  pp.  217,  224.  See  also  Adolphus,  Memoirs  ojjohn  Bannister, 
I,  85;  Wilkinson,  Memoirs,  II,  91 ;  Doran,  II,  246,  etc.  On  the  occasion  of 
Macready's  benefit  in  1820,  that  distinguished  actor  refused  to  accept  a 
number  of  valuable  presents  from  friends  in  the  audience,  on  the  ground 
that  the  old  practice  seemed  to  him  "to  compromise  the  actor's  independ- 
ence" {Macready's  Reminiscences,  ed.  Sir  Frederick  Pollock,  p.  163). 

2  Apology,  II,  131  ff.,  140.  3  i^  418.  4  Apology,  I,  311. 


THE  PLAYERS  91 

himself,  earlier  in  his  career,  had  been  generously  treated 
by  Ashbury,  the  manager  under  whom  he  made  his  first 
appearance.  The  play  was  Oroonoko^  the  time  the  year  of 
1698.  Booth  won  such  enthusiastic  applause  from  a 
crowded  audience  that  the  manager  rewarded  him  with  a 
present  of  five  guineas,  which,  says  Chetwood,^  "was  the 
more  acceptable  as  his  last  Shilling  was  reduced  to  Brass" 
at  the  time.  Garrick,  too,  knew  how  to  be  generous.  A 
contemporary  reports  that  on  watching  Weston  act  Abel 
Drugger,  Garrick  exclaimed  that  the  performance  was  one 
of  the  best  pieces  of  acting  he  had  ever  seen,  and  straight- 
way presented  Weston  with  a  twenty-pound  banknote.^ 

In  the  long  run,  the  best  thing  the  managers  did  for  the 
players  was  to  pay  them  better  salaries  and  to  help  them 
in  their  attempt  to  provide  pensions  for  old  or  disabled 
members  of  the  profession.  We  have  seen  something  of 
the  meagre  pay,  the  struggles  and  hardships  of  beginners 
and  minor  players.  To  round  out  the  picture  it  is  neces- 
sary to  add  certain  details  as  to  the  prosperity  of  those 
who  succeeded.  Benefit  earnings  were  for  a  long  time  a 
most  important  resource,  but  it  should  be  understood  that 
by  the  second  and  third  decade  of  the  eighteenth  century 
salaries  had  gone  up,  and  some  of  the  stars  were  earning 
very  comfortable  sums. 

On  Christmas  Day,  1699,  Vanbrugh  wrote  to  the  Earl 
of  Manchester  from  London:  "Dogget  was  here  last 
week;  they  gave  him  thirty  pounds  to  act  six  times, 
which  he  did,  and  filled  the  house  each  time"  at  Lincoln's 
Inn  Fields.^  "This,"  says  Dr.  Doran,  "is  the  first  instance 
I  know  of,  of  the  starring  system;  and  it  is  remarkable 
that  the  above  sum  should  have  been  given  for  six  nights* 
performance,  when  Betterton's  salary  did  not  exceed  £5 

^  History  of  the  Stage,  1749,  p.  91 ;  Genest,  X,  276-277. 
2  Genest,  V,  507. 

'  Duke  of  Manchester,  Court  and  Society  from  Elizabeth  to  Anne,  II,  55; 
cf.  II,  60. 


^ 


^.  o  (rll  •    C'^B/^J^  *-^~<    s:  /rfr 

per  week."  ^  I  do  not  believe  that  this  can  properly  be 
termed  the  first  appearance  of  the  "starring  system,"  for 
Betterton  had  enjoyed  the  essential  prerogatives  of  a  star 
(benefits  included)  long  before  Dogget,^  but  that  actor's 
salary  on  this  occasion  was  certainly  far  above  the  aver- 
age. Pepys,  as  early  as  July  22,  166,3,  notes  that  Harris 
demanded  "20/.  for  hiniseTTextmorilina^ 
t'efton  or  any  body  else,  upon  every  new  play^  jjid^o/. 
upon  every  revive^'  but  that  particular  demand  was  not 
grantedT  In  any  case,  if  drawing  power  makes  a  star, 
there  were  others  who  might  have  disputed  Dogget's 
priority.  Downes,  in  his  account  of  the  successful  pres- 
entation of  one  of  Shirley's  plays  soon  after  the  Restora- 
tion, speaks  particularly  of  the  character  of  "Dulcino, 
the  Grateful  Servant,  being  acted  by  Mrs.  Lon^;  andthe 
first  time  she  appear'd  in  Man's  Habit,  prov'd  as  Bene- 
icial  to  the  Company  as  several  succeeding  new  Plays."  ^ 
And  the  actresses  —  even  those  who  did  not  play 
"breeches  parts  "  —  continued  to  rule  in  the  constella- 
tion of  stars  long  after  they  had  ceased  to  be  a  mere 
.novelty:  ^  witness  the  enduring  favor  won  by  such  artists 
as  Mrs.  Bracegirdle  and  Mrs.  Oldfield,  quite  apart  from 
the  notorious  popularity  of  the  Moll  Davises  and  the  Nell 
Gwynns.  I  have  already  shown  that  actresses,  as  well  as 
actors,  had  to  start  at  small  wages,  but  many  of  those  who 
eventually  won  fame,  won  fortune  also.  Mrs.  Oldfield, 
for  example,  who  began  at  fifteen  shillings  a  week,  drew 
£200  a  year  when  Gibber  and  his  colleagues  took  over  the 

1  1, 186. 

2  Betterton  had  become  the  chief  actor  of  his  company,  as  well  as  D'Ave- 
nant's  deputy  manager,  decades  before  this  time.   Cf.  pp.  82,  109. 

^  Roscius  Anglicanus,  p.  27. 
L  ^  Prynne  tells  of  certain  French  actresses  in  London  in  Charles  I's  time, 
but  they  were  hooted  off  the  stage;  and  Coryat  {Crudities,  161 1)  had  never 
seen  women  on  the  stage  until  he  went  to  Italy.  Fnglish  Indie^  inrliiHing 
Tames  I's  queen,  had  appeared  in  court  masques  before  then,  but  professional 
actresses  did  not  take  their  place  on  the  English  stage  until  after  the  Restora- 
tion.  See  Lawrence,  Elizabethan  Playhouse,  I,  129-130. 


n^--.^  •— • 


For  the    Benefit  of  the    AUTIJOR. 

By  the  Rt.  Hon.  the  L  O  R  D  MAYO  R's  Company  of  Com.etii 


^Never  Perfonned  but  Twice.) 


At  the  THEATRE  in  SMOCK-AL  L  E7, 

'T^Omorrow   l«ing  Wednefday,  the"  sjih   of  this    Inflant   Janoarj-,   1-37.     V.'ilf   be  Afled 
"*•  a  Comedy,  cali'd.    The 


S   H   A 


.\. 


Mr.  Sparks 
Mr.  Elringroii 
Mr.  Morgan 
Mr.  Wetiicrik 
Mr.  PhiJips 

Mrs.  Reynolds 
Mrs.   Orfcar 
Mrs.  Morgan 


The   Pares   to  be    Perform'd   by 


I  Mr.  Efte 
j  Mr.  Barrlngton 
I  Mr.  Caftel 
j  Mr.   Morris 
I  Mr.  C.  Morg.m 

I  Mrs.  Wccherik 

Mrs.  Ravcnfcrofc 
.j  Mrs.  Stepney 


Mr,  Bourne     . 
Mr.  Stepney 
Mr.  Fiizpatrick 
Mr.  Eeamfiy 
Mr.  Hind 

I  Mr^.  IMirtin 

Mrs.   Hii.d 
1  Mis.  U-a-ry 


The     PROLOGUE     (o     be     fpoke     l,v     Mr.  F.  S  T  E. 

With  a  New  E  P  I  LO  G  U  K.  Tpokc  hy  Mrs.  U  .\  \  V.  N  S  C  RO  FT.  Ir  :\-  Ci:  .r.-.i^cr  <rf 
S  US  AN  NAH    JD  A  1  X  V. 

TICKETS  to  be  had  at  Mr  Gecrj^e  Taulkncr's  in  nnNSrrcct;   the  Globe  C'll-i-Houfe  \-& 

Elfcx-btrccc  i  and  ct  the  'Ihreirc. 

Ticl;et3  given  out  for  the  9th  of  December  wiJ    be  t..r,v.i   at  th:-',  i'Nv. 

Boxes,  Stage,  Letticesand  Pit  at  a  Eiitifh  Crov.n.     Gillcv  j  .  ;  1.      N  .i  -yl-X  ".■•..:■.■■,  tolie  take 

.BckirmisS!  exatflly  at  half  .\\\  Hour  after  .S:>:  o'  Cb;':,  i  '.^^i  i^ 


THE  PLAYERS  93 

management  of  Drury  Lane,  and  300  and  400  guineas  a 
year  —  over  and  above  her  benefits  —  before  the  close  of 
her  career.    It  is  said  that  she  was  "obHged  to  find  her 
comedy  clothes"  out  of  her  salary,  but  therein  she  was  no 
worse  off  than  others,  for  in  Shakspere's  time  as  well  as 
later  the  players  had  to  provide  a  part  of  their  own  cos- 
tume.^  At  all  events,  she  prospered,  and  left  a  very  sub- 
stantial fortune  at  her  death,^  Mrs.  Cibber  —  the  famous 
Susannah  Maria  Cibber,  the  laureate's  daughter-in-law 
—  might  have  done  as  well  as  Mrs.  Oldfield  had  she  been 
as  prudent  as  she  was  fascinating,  for  at  times  she  earned 
as  much  as  £600  for  a  season  of  sixty  nights.  Mrs.  Abing- 
ton,  again,  is  said  to  have  received  £500  for  a  Dublin 
engagement  of  but   twelve   nights;  Anne   Catley,   the 
sprightly  Euphrosyne  of  the  eighteenth-century  Comus 
and  the  Nell  Gwynn  of  her  time,  is  credited  with  a  salary 
of  £i,coo  a  season,  and  Peg  Woffington  prospered  in  like 
manner.^   Some  of  the  men  had  incomes  equally  large, 
even  those  who  did  not  share  in  the  patent.  James  Quin, 
who  stood  first  in  his  profession  from  the  death  of  Booth 
(in  1733)  to  the  appearance  of  Garrick,  drew  £800  a  year 
at  Covent  Garden;  *  Macklin  and  his  wife  together  were 
getting  the  same  sum  at  Dublin  in  1747,  while  Macklin 
alone  had  £20  a  night  at  the  Haymarket  in  1773  and 
earned  large  dividends  for  the  manager.^    Others,  too, 
were  well  paid,  —  notably  Barry,  Garrick's  rival  in  the 
famous  Romeo  and  Juliet  season  of  1750,  the  elder  Sheri- 
dan, and  Garrick  himself,  who  had  but  a  pound  a  night 
when  he  first  made  his  bow  in  London  in  the  year  1741, 
but  £500  at  Drury  Lane  the  year  after.^  Five  years  later 

^  Cf.  Henslowe's  Diary,  I,  72,  78;  Lowe,  Betterton,  p.  75. 

*  Egerton,  Faitjul  Memoirs  of  .  .  .  Mrs.  Anne  Oldfield,  1731,  pp.  209  fF., 
and  Appendix  II. 

3  Oulton,  II,  97;  Victor,  I,  151-152;  Observations  on  Differences  at  Covent 
Garden,  p.  27. 

*  Victor,  III,  89.  6  Victor,  I,  137;  Fitzgerald,  II,  264  (cf.  268). 

«  Victor,  I,  186;  Davies,  Life  of  Garrick,  I.  48,  52,  327;  Murphy,  Life  of 
Garrick,  I,  21,  41. 


94  SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

he  purchased  the  patent  of  that  playhouse,  and  thereupon 
an  anonymous  letter-writer  wanted  to  know  why  any  one 
with  so  large  an  income  as  the  great  Davy  should  under- 
take new  burdens :  "Were  you  not  paid  more  for  diverting 
the  Publick,  when,  and  in  what  Parts  you  pleased,  (for  all 
was  at  your  own  Option)  than  a  General-Officer  receives 
for  all  the  vast  Fatigues  he  endures,  and  the  Hazard  of  his 
Life?  "  ^  Garrick,  of  course,  did  not  undertake  the  man- 
agement merely  to  make  money  out  of  it,  though  his 
labors  brought  him  great  wealth  as  well  as  great  fame. 

It  would  be  easy  to  exaggerate  the  prosperity  of  the 
players,  and  it  must  be  remembered  that  the  profession 
as  a  whole  did  not  enjoy  such  incomes  as  those  just  men- 
tioned. "Five  Hundred  Pounds  a  year,"  wrote  James 
Ralph  in  1758,2  "and  a  Benefit  clear  of  all  Deduction,  is  a 
Consideration  that  no  first-rate  Performer,  Male  or  Fe- 
male, will  be  content  with;  besides  what  can  be  levy'd, 
over  and  above,  by  occasional  Trips  to  Dublin."  It  hap- 
pens that  the  Drury  Lane  pay-roll  of  the  year  1765  has 
been  preserved,^  and  one  need  merely  glance  at  that  to  see 
that  Ralph  exaggerated  decidedly,  for  by  no  means  all  the 
first-rate  performers  were  getting  the  sum  he  specifies. 
His  reference,  however,  to  the  possibility  of  additional 
earnings  "on  the  road"  opens  up  a  large  and  interesting 
subject,  on  which  we  can  merely  touch  in  passing.'*  The 
reader  will  recall  how  well  Mrs.  Abington  fared  on  a  cer- 
tain visit  of  hers  to  Dublin,  and  I  may  add  here  that  Anne 
Catley,  the  toast  of  all  the  gentlemen  of  the  town,  and  the 
fashion  plate  of  all  the  ladies,  is  said  to  have  received 
forty  guineas  for  each  performance  on  one  of  her  trium- 

^  A  Letter  to  Mr.  Garrick,  on  his  having  purchased  a  Patent  for  Drury-Lane 
Play-House,  p.  5. 

2  The  Case  of  Authors  Stated,  pp.  42-43. 

3  Notes  and  Queries,  6th  Series,  XI,  461. 

*  For  fuller  discussion,  see  the  writer's  articles  on  the  Elizabethan  stroll- 
ers, Modern  Philology,  XVII,  121  fF.  (January,  1920),  and  on  those  of  later 
times,  forthcoming  in  Publications  of  the  Modern  Language  Association. 


THE  PLAYERS  95 

phant  tours  there. ^  The  Irish  theatres,  in  fact,  besides 
producing  many  great  actors  of  their  own,  were  at  once 
an  El  Dorado  and  a  strong  resource  in  time  of  trouble  for 
the  English  players.  Booth,  as  well  as  Wilks,  won  his 
first  success  there,^  and  many  young  actors  found  oppor- 
tunities in  Dublin  for  which  they  would  have  had  to  wait 
long  years  in  London.  Mrs.  Bellamy,  for  example,  tells  us 
that  the  manager  of  Covent  Garden  advised  her  to  accept 
Thomas  Sheridan's  offer  to  play  in  Dublin,  since  there 
"I  should  .  .  .  have  an  opportunity  of  appearing  in 
every  principal  character,  an  advantage  I  could  not  be  in- 
dulged with  on  a  London  stage."  London  could  not  offer 
this  opportunity,  because  at  that  time  "the  possession  of 
parts  was  considered  ...  as  much  the  property  of  per- 
formers as  their  weekly  salaries  "  ^  —  a  curious  property 
right,  by  the  way,  for  the  validity  of  which  the  actors 
at  Covent  Garden  pleaded  to  the  Lord  Chamberlain 
as  late  as  1799,  when  the  proprietors  finally  won  their 
contention  that  this  ancient  privilege  was  preposterous 
and  pernicious.^  Ireland,  meanwhile,  long  remained  a 
land  of  promise  for  English  actors,  famous  or  otherwise. 
O'Keeffe  tells  a  tale  of  an  English  visitor  named  Webster, 
"who  had  been  a  Proctor  in  Doctors  Commons"  and  who 
took  to  the  boards  in  Ireland.  There  he  scored  a  huge 
success.  "He  got  above  three  thousand  pounds  in  one 
year,  by  acting  in  Dublin,  Cork,  and  Limerick;  and  might 
have  realized  a  good  fortune."  ^ 

The  great  players  had  not  only  good  salaries,  benefits, 
and  road  profits,  but  also,  like  the  Elizabethans,  addi- 
tional income  through  their  connections  at  court,^  and 
occasionally  from  apprentice  fees  paid  them  for  training 

1  Oulton,  II,  97. 

2  T.  Gibber,  Lije  oj  Booth,  p.  4;  Chetwood,  pp.  91-92;  Curll,  Lije  oj  Wilks, 
pp.  4-5;  Gibber,  Apology,  I,  235. 

^  Lije  of  G.  A.  Bellamy,  3d  ed.,  I,  100. 

*  Observations  on  Differences  at  Covent  Garden,  p.  62. 

*  Recollections,  I,  337-338.  ^  See  below.  Chapter  V. 


96  SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

young  actors.  Among  Shakspere's  colleagues  and  friends 
was  Augustine  Phillipps,  and  Phillipps  had  two  appren- 
tices, —  Christopher  Beeston  and  Samuel  Gilborne. 
Richard  Burbage,  again,  was  the  master  of  Nicholas 
Tooley,  and  Richard  Brome  may  have  been  the  acting 
apprentice  of  Ben  Jonson.^  Downes,  too,  repeatedly 
speaks  of  young  players  who  "were  Bred  up  from  Boys 
under  the  Master  Actors"  of  Restoration  times,  and 
Pepys  saw  and  heard  one  of  these  boys  publicly  discip- 
lined by  his  master  on  March  23,  1661,  when  "the  boy 
that  was  to  sing  a  song,  not  singing  it  right,  his  master 
fell  about  his  ears  and  beat  him  so,  that  it  put  the  whole 
house  in  an  uprore."  ^  The  master  actors'  income  from 
apprentice  fees  may  not  have  been  very  large,  but  it  is 
worthy  of  mention,  since  such  fees,  in  Shakspere's  life- 
time, were  sometimes  as  much  as  a  hundred  pounds.' 
But  these  golden  streams,  after  all,  did  not  flow  for  the 
majority  of  those  in  the  profession. 

On  the  Drury  Lane  pay-roll  of  1765  appear  the  names 
of  two  pensioners,  who  drew  ten  and  twelve  shillings  a 
week  respectively.  In  spite  of  the  great  earning  power  of 
the  stars,  the  average  salary  of  Drury  Lane's  fifty-six 
actors  and  actresses  that  year  was  only  about  £3  loj.  a 
week.'*  It  is  not  surprising,  therefore,  to  find  that  some  of 
the  players  needed  pensions  or  other  aid  when  they  grew 
old.  The  stage,  in  fact,  had  had  its  pensioners  for  a  long 
time.  Downes,  for  example,  notes  that  Charles  Hart,  the 
chief  actor  of  the  King's  Men,  who  left  the  stage  in  1682, 
in  broken  health,  received  from  the  United  Company  a 
salary  of  4.0s.  a  week  to  the  day  of  his  death. ^  Cave  Un- 

1  Chalmers,  Apology,  pp.  433,  449,  452;  Thaler,  Modern  Language  Notes, 
XXXVI,  88-91. 

2  Roscius  AnglicanuSy  pp.  a,  35;  McAfee,  Pepys  on  the  Restoration  Stage, 

p.  301- 

3  J.  F.  Scott,  Historical  Essays  on  Apprenticeship,  p.  23;  cf.  Henslowe's 
Diary,  I,  78;  Curll's  Life  oj  fVi/ks,  p.  23- 

*  Notes  and  Queries,  6th  Series,  XI,  461-462. 

'  Roscius  Anglicanus,  p.  39;  cf.  Lowe,  Betterton,  p.  126. 


^'IL I L/\  I  K  t  a U Y A  [., DITFRT  T    r 

At  the  t<-<[urll  nJ    niliiv  InriuUt..   W.-i-:, 


h.i   the  B    ,,.h    .■       .  c 

.         WIDOW  ar.cl  ORPflAN 

'  ()•   ti.e  Lite 

Mr.      S  T  O  R    A   C  E. 


Thkatr£  -  Royal, 
HAY'M  AR  K  E'I\ 


For  iLc  LlAsl-i .  -'  ^'^ 
The  FOU  R   TO  UNO  il  .  -1    o  R  F  1:  ._ 
Of  the  Late  Miu  P  A  L  M  li  R. 

WILL  l-  I ..  .  ..u 

The    he  ili    at    LAW, 
And  olhcr  Enterxa 


I//  r 

/  ' 


THE  PLAYERS  97 

derhill,  too,  died  "a  superannuated  Pensioner  in  the  List 
of  those  who  were  supported  by  the  joint  Sharers  "  of  the 
Cibber  management/  though  probably  his  pension  was 
smaller  than  that  of  Hart  and  Kynaston.  Doubtless  a 
similar  provision  was  made  from  time  to  time  for  old 
actors  in  Shakspere's  time,  though  I  do  not  know  of  any 
evidence  on  the  point.  Certain  it  is  that  the  members  of 
Shakspere's  company  were  bound  to  each  other  by  the 
ties  of  firm  friendship,  that  many  of  them  called  upon 
their  colleagues  to  serve  as  executors  for  their  estates,  and 
that  such  trusts  were  carried  out  unselfishly  and  loyally. ^ 
It  is  reasonable  to  infer  that  these  men  did  not  neglect  to 
provide  for  the  aged  or  unfortunate  among  them. 

The  evidence  concerning  later  times  is  abundant,  and 
nothing  can  be  more  certain  than  the  fact  that  stage 
people  have  always  rallied  generously  to  help  their  com- 
rades when  help  was  most  needed.  Thus  we  read  of  a 
benefit  arranged  in  1708  for  "a  young  orphan  child  of  the 
late  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Verbruggen,"  ^  while  Genest  tells  of 
three  benefits,  exactly  ninety  years  later,  for  the  orphans 
of  John  Palmer,  another  Drury  Lane  favorite,  who  had 
died  on  the  stage  that  summer.^  We  know,  further,  that 
Cibber  himself  successfully  returned  to  the  stage  once 
more  in  1741,  to  act  for  the  benefit  of  Chetwood,  the  old 
prompter  of  Drury  Lane,  who  was  then  imprisoned  for 
debt,  and  that  public  and  players  joined  forces  in  1758  to 
ensure  the  success  of  a  subscription  issue  of  an  old  play 
for  the  relief  of  Mrs.  Porter,  another  aged  and  favorite 
performer  who  was  badly  in  need  of  help.^ 

Similar  good  deeds  are  written  large  and  often  in  the 
annals  of  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  century  the- 

^  Apology,  I,  156. 

2  Chalmers,  III,  470;  Collier,  Actors,  pp.  146,  243. 
^  Lowe's  note.  Apology,  I,  157. 

*  Genest,  VII,  342;  cf.  Percy  Anecdotes,  XXVII,  114;  Reynolds,  Lije  and 
Times,  II,  260-261. 

5  Lowe's  Supplementary  Chapter,  Apology,  II,  265;  Genest,  IV,  44. 


98  SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

atreSj  but  only  a  few  more  can  be  noticed  here.  Interest- 
ing among  them  is  that  of  Queen  Anne,  who,  after  the 
death  of  Betterton  in  1710,  granted  his  widow  a  royal 
pension.  Unfortunately,  however,  this  pension  was  al- 
ways in  arrears,  and  it  may  be  that  only  Mrs.  Betterton's 
heirs  profited  by  it.^  The  managers  themselves  sometimes 
afforded  relief  more  quickly.  Thus,  when  one  of  the 
Duke's  Men,  an  actor  named  Cademan,  was  injured  with 
a  sharp  foil,  and  permanently  disabled,  while  playing  in 
the  year  1673,  he  was  promptly  pensioned,  and  lived  to 
draw  his  pension  for  at  least  thirty-five  years. ^  The 
managers  of  later  times,  too,  were  ready  to  do  something 
in  an  emergency.  A  Covent  Garden  treasury  entry  of 
1790,  for  instance,  records  a  donation  of  £10  los.  to 
"Harley  &  lewis,  supernumeraries  who  fell  from  the  scaf- 
fold in  The  Crusade,"  and  the  proprietors  of  that  theatre 
stated  in  1799  that  they  did  not  suspend  the  salaries  of 
actors  in  cases  of  "temporary  malady."  ^ 

But  such  acts  of  charity,  after  all,  provided  for  but  a 
small  number  of  cases,  and  even  then,  as  Davies  says, 
they  furnished  only  "  a  partial  and  uncertain  relief."  The 
situation  was  brought  home  to  the  whole  profession  in  the 
year  1765  by  the  sudden  misfortune  which  befell  a  Mrs. 
Hamilton,  an  eminent  actress  in  her  time,  who  was  left 
destitute  and  absolutely  dependent  upon  the  charity  of 
her  fellows  while  still  in  her  best  years.  The  case  aroused 
wide  interest  and  led  Thomas  Hull,  a  leading  actor  and 
official  at  Covent  Garden,  to  take  steps  towards  the  foun- 
dation of  an  Actors'  Fund.  Hull's  organization,  it  should 
be  noted,  was  open  only  to  the  players  at  Covent  Garden. 
It  collected,  to  begin  with,  "no  less  than  half  a  guinea  nor 
more  than  a  guinea"  from  each  member,  together  with 

'  Lowe,  Betterton,  p.  1 83. 

2  Downes,  p.  31. 

^  T/ie  Crusade  was  an  opera  by  Reynolds.  See  Covent  Garden  playbills, 
British  Museum,  June  12,  1790;  and  Observations  on  Differences  at  Covent 
Garden,  p.  34. 


i  C  u  I 

thng- a'F  U  N 
cr  thciewllp  irom  their  Infirmities  Fnall  be  obliged 
.to  retire  from  tiie'.Staee." 


At  the'llieatre.  Royal -in  Deury-Lane, 

This  prefeiit:  Thuridayj  May  24,.  1770^ 

Kvery  Man  in  his-HUMOUR:- 

Kitelv    bv   Mr.    G  A  RR  I  C  K, 

'  Old  Kno'a-cir    by     Mr,     H  U  R  S  T,  ,   •■ 

Youn"  Knowei!  hv  Mr.  AICKIN,  Wcllb.red  by  Mr.  PALMIZIU 

'■    Gapt,  Ecbadii  by  Mr.  KrNG,'~ ; 

Mafter  Stephen     by     Mr.     D  O  D  D, 

Eraiiiworm  (ift  Time)  Mr.MGODY, 

Downright  Mr.  BRANSBY,  Juftice  Clement  IMr.  BURTON, 

Cafh  Mr.  Packer,  M.ifterMathcw-^VJr.W.  Palmer,  Cobi-cr.Wrigiir, 

--  Bndget  by  Mrs."|EFFERi5:S,     Tib  by  Mrs.'ERADSKAW,  ■ 

Mrs.  Kitely  [iftTime]  Mifs  YOUNGE- 

Ad  V.    The  Butterfly,'  by  Sieur  Daigville,  SJg'  Vidbi,  &c. 
With     an     Occafional  .EPILOGUE, 

To  be  Spoken  .by  Mr..  GARRICK. 

lu  which  will  be  added  lbs  Comic  O^-e;^  of 

The  .   P.  A-.D  LOG  Iv. 

Leander     by     Mr..    V  £  R  N  O  N,     . 
-Don  J3iego   Mr:  Bannifteiv-^.  Mango   Mr,  Dibdia, 
Urfula     by     Mrs.     D  O  R  M  A  N,     -- 
Leonora     by     Mifs    ,R  A  D  L  E  Y. 

PIT     and     B  O  X  E  3     are     laid     Together. 

And  no  Admittance  into' the  Fit  or  Bax£$  but  with  Tickets., 

■j'i^.Ii  LdUit:  idd  Gtntlenicn  who  have  taken  Pl3C«  in'.tbe  Pit,,  are  dertrcd  to  come 

larlv,  th.it  they  may  grt  to  tiu-m  with   grfalet  Convc.wtiry. 

'1  ht  Dcots  will  bt-  opened  ac  HAi  p.iil  FIVE  o'da-.k. 

T,>  !  c-m  rxdCtiy  nt  Hilf  pafl  SIX  o'Clnck.  Viv-inc  Rex  h  Regina. 

■        Un  t.!tuid.iy,  ilbe  bjglny-Ninm  Nigbtj  llw  J  U  ii  i  L  i^^^^ 


THE  PLAYERS  99 

weekly  fees  of  sixpence  in  the  pound.  Next,  subscriptions 
were  invited,  and  the  managers  readily  agreed  to  give  the 
fund  an  annual  benefit.  Garrick,  the  dean  of  his  profes- 
sion, was  travelling  on  the  Continent  at  the  time,  and  it  is 
said  that  he  at  first  resented  the  fact  that  the  movement 
had  not  waited  upon  his  return.  None  the  less,  he  soon 
gave  it  his  hearty  support,  and  indeed  it  was  through 
his  efforts  that  the  Drury  Lane  Fund  —  an  organization 
distinct  from  that  of  Covent  Garden  —  was  incorporated, 
—  by  an  Act  of  Parliament  of  1776,  which  permitted  its 
directors  to  hold  land  to  the  value  of  £500  a  year  tax-free. 
Garrick  and  his  partner,  Lacy,  paid  the  expenses  of  get- 
ting the  bill  through  Parliament,  and  continued  to  aid 
their  fund  handsomely.  Garrick  himself  acted  his  best 
parts  each  year  for  the  benefit  of  the  fund,  gave  it  a 
house,  and  directly  or  indirectly  raised  £4,500  for  it. 
Others  also  came  to  the  support  of  the  two  funds.  Bad- 
deley,  one  of  the  Drury  Lane  players,  left  his  cottage  and 
some  hundreds  of  pounds  to  the  Drury  Lane  organization 
upon  his  death  in  1794,  and  three  years  earlier,  John 
Beard,  actor  and  one-time  manager  of  Covent  Garden, 
had  left  £100  to  the  other  fund.  Again,  so  early  as  1766, 
the  actors  at  Covent  Garden  had  had  occasion  to  thank 
Richard  Cumberland  publicly  for  his  gift  of  £76,  the  pro- 
ceeds of  one  of  his  author's  nights,  which  he  had  made 
over  to  their  fund.  In  later  years  the  royal  family  and 
the  nobility  consistently  headed  the  subscription  lists 
when  public  appeals  were  made  for  this  charity,  for  it  was 
soon  found  that  such  appeals  were  necessary. 

The  demands  upon  the  two  organizations  grew  steadily, 
though  the  managers  still  allowed  special  benefits  from 
time  to  time,  —  or  other  aid,  to  meet  cases  of  particular 
distress.  According  to  Thomas  Hull's  statement  in  1796, 
several  annuitants,  chiefly  widows  and  orphans,  had  been 
supported  by  the  Covent  Garden  Fund  for  more  than 
twenty  years,  though  the  interest  upon  the  capital  never 


loo         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

supplied  more  than  half  the  disbursements.  Most  of  the 
rest,  according  to  a  later  statement,  was  obtained  from  a 
2|  per  cent  levy  upon  members'  salaries,  but  even  so  the 
average  pensioner  had  no  more  than  £20  a  year.  Limited 
though  it  was,  the  work  went  on,  and  before  the  end  of 
the  century  the  example  set  by  the  London  theatres  was 
followed  at  Bath  and  other  cities  in  the  provinces.  Mean- 
while, the  two  London  organizations  found  that  their 
free  and  independent  status  had  its  difficulties.  They 
sought  to  avoid  one  of  the  most  obvious  of  these  by  mak- 
ing their  appeals  to  the  public  in  alternate  years,  but 
there  remained  the  fact  that  the  rules  under  which  the 
pension  funds  operated  interfered  with  the  players'  free- 
dom of  motion,  since  only  such  as  remained  steadily  with 
one  house  or  the  other  could  become  beneficiaries.  The 
union  of  the  two  organizations  in  the  General  Theatrical 
Fund  of  1838  obviated  these  difficulties,  and  that  enter- 
prise, transformed  and  reorganized  in  various  ways  but 
essentially  the  same,  survives  in  the  Actors'  Benevolent 
Fund  of  to-day.^  Similar  funds,  of  course,  have  long  since 
been  established  in  America,  and  elsewhere. 

There  remains  but  little  to  say  here  concerning  the 
players.  I  have  sketched  their  activities  in  the  proud  old 
days  of  company  independence,  the  changes  that  came 
with  the  Restoration  and  the  eighteenth  century,  their 
new  relations  with  the  managers,  their  finances,  their  an- 
cient privileges,  their  poverty  and  prosperity,  and  their 
kindly  deeds  for  one  another.  Of  the  relations  between 
them  and  their  audiences  I  shall  have  more  to  say  later. 
At  this  point  a  word  more  as  to  their  standing  in  the  com- 
munity and  concerning  the  general  renomme  of  the  pro- 
fession may  be  in  order.  Certainly  it  has  won  its  way 
to-day  to  a  proud  equality  with  artists  and  professional 

^  Davies,  Life  of  Garrkk,  II,  331-341;  Genest,  IV,  660;  VII,  193-194, 
493;  VIII,  209,  462;  IX,  537-541,  76;  Oulton,  II,  86,  170-172;  Fitzgerald,  II, 
248  ff.;  Observations  on  Differences  at  Covent  Garden,  p.  35;  The  Fund  for  the 
Relief  of  Indigent  Persons,  1 8 1 9. 


THE  PLAYERS  loi 

people  of  whatever  kind.  Even  with  the  beginning  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  many  of  the  old  prejudices  had  be- 
gun to  disappear,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  certain  actors 
and  actresses  of  the  Restoration  —  like  other  polite  per- 
sons of  that  time  —  were,  in  certain  respects,  no  better 
than  they  needed  to  be.  And  yet  there  are  probably  those 
among  us  who  in  their  heart  of  hearts  still  think  of  stage- 
players  no  more  charitably  than  their  ancestors  did  in  the 
days  of  good  Queen  Bess.  Then  and  later  the  glittering 
gains  of  the  players  were  magnified  with  all  of  rumor's 
thousand  tongues,  and  the  easy  morality  of  some  of  their 
number  was  laid  to  the  charge  of  all.  "Player  is  a  great 
Spender,"  wrote  one  of  the  bitter  Puritans  of  old,  "and 
indeed  may  resemble  Strumpets,  who  get  their  money 
filthily,  and  spend  it  profusely";  and  another  adds  —  to 
point  the  moral  —  that  "  the  little  thrift  that  followeth 
their  greate  gaine,  is  a  manifest  token  that  God  hath 
cursed  it."  ^  And  yet  it  is  at  best  but  a  half-truth  to  hold 
that  Elizabethan  actors  were  poorly  paid  or  low  in  public 
esteem. 2  Sir  Thomas  Overbury's  word  on  the  subject  is 
to  the  point:  "I  value  a  worthy  Actor  by  the  corruption 
of  some  few  of  the  quality,  as  I  wold  doe  gold  in  the  oare. 
I  should  not  mind  the  drosse  but  the  purity  of  the  met- 
tal."  ^  And  the  charge  of  thriftlessness  is  amply  refuted 
by  the  careers  of  Shakspere,  Hemings,  Burbage,  and  a 
score  of  their  associates.  Thomas  Heywood,  who  knew 
and  loved  his  fellows  as  few  men  did,  speaks  at  once 
eloquently  and  sanely  for  them,  and  for  those  who  came 
after.  "Many  amongst  us,"  he  writes,  "I  know  to  be  of 
substance,  of  government,  of  sober  lives,  and  temperate 
carriages,  .  .  .  and  if  amongst  so  many  of  sort,  there  be 
any  few  degenerate  from  the  rest  in  that  good  demeanor 

'  T.  G[ainsford],  Rich  Cabinet,  1616;  Gosson,  Plays  Conjuted  (Hazlitt, 
English  Drama  and  Stage,  pp.  230,  217). 

2  Cf.  Sheavyn,  Literary  Profession  in  the  Elizabethan  Age,  pp.  89  ff, 
*  Characters,  ed.  161 6,  sig.  M  3. 


I02         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

which  is  both  requisite  and  expected  at  their  hands,  let  me 
entreat  you  not  to  censure  hardly  of  all  for  the  misdeeds 
of  some."  ^  It  is  true,  perhaps,  that  certain  Restoration 
players  were  worthy  of  censure  in  more  ways  than  one. 
Pepys  noted  in  1661  (February  23)  that  "the  gallants  do 
begin  to  be  tyred  with  the  vanity  and  pride  of  the  theatre 
actors,  who  are  indeed  grown  very  proud  and  rich." 
There  occurred,  from  time  to  time,  certain  despicable 
exhibitions  of  the  gallants'  gentlemanly  superiority;  ^  but 
it  is  significant  that  those  of  the  gallants  (Pepys  among 
them)  who  were  not  blackguards,  were  frequently  glad 
enough  to  join  these  very  actors  as  equals  over  the  cups 
that  cheer  and  the  talk  that  stimulates.  The  more  or  less 
honorable  connections  between  royalty  or  nobility  and 
the  ladies  of  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  century 
theatre  is  not  a  subject  that  requires  comment  here,  nor 
was  the  vogue  of  the  Mrs.  Abingtons  and  the  Anne  Cat- 
leys  in  the  world  of  fashion  a  matter  of  supreme  con- 
sequence. One  ought  at  least  to  remember  also  the 
unblemished  fame  of  Mrs.  Bracegirdle  and  the  high  re- 
spect and  esteem  in  which  all  the  world  held  such  a  man 
as  Betterton,  with  whom  Archbishop  Tillotson,  for  ex- 
ample, lived  on  terms  of  sincere  friendship. 

It  is  none  the  less  true  that  old  prejudices  died  hard. 
Victor,  in  1761,  speaks  in  a  tone  of  something  very  like 
servility  of  the  majors  and  captains  and  men  of  good 
family  who  occasionally  honored  the  profession  in  the 
Restoration  and  the  early  eighteenth  century,  and  Cibber 
is  not  in  his  best  vein  when  he  expresses  his  regret  at  hav- 
ing relinquished  his  prospects  "in  a  more  honorable  sta- 
tion" in  order  to  descend  upon  Drury  Lane.^  A  more 
wholesome  note  is  struck  by  the  actor-playwright  Arthur 
Murphy,  who  bitterly  resented  the  attitude  of  the  Bench- 

*  Apology  Jor  Actors,  Shakespeare  Society,  1841,  p.  44. 

2  Cf.  Apology,  I,  76-82;  Bellchambers,  in  his  edition  oi  Apology,  pp.  134  ff. 

3  I,  236;  Victor,  II,  85-86. 


THE  PLAYERS  103 

ers  of  the  Middle  Temple  when  that  society,  in  1757, 
hesitated  to  admit  him  because  he  had  been  an  actor.^ 
And  yet,  one  fine  day  in  1755,  Horace  Walpole  wrote  to 
tell  a  friend  of  his  how  he  had  dined  in  company  with  the 
Duke  of  Grafton,  the  Spanish  Minister,  the  Lord  Cham- 
berlain, and  other  lords  and  ladies  and  great  ones  of  the 
earth,  —  this  being,  he  adds,  ''  sur  un  assez  bon  ton  for  a 
player,"  who  was  none  other  than  the  host  of  the  oc- 
casion: one  David  Garrick.^  In  the  long  run,  the  fact 
that  many  of  the  players  were  persons  "of  substance  and 
temperate  carriages  "  told  in  their  favor.  If  some  of  them, 
say  in  Restoration  times,  were  vain  and  proud  and  ex- 
travagant, others  —  like  Kynaston  and  Nokes  —  were 
prudent,  fortunate,  and  generally  respected.  The  world 
laughed  at  the  ups  and  downs  of  Colley  Gibber,  but  it 
admired  profoundly  his  colleague  Dogget  for  being  worth 
a  thousand  pounds  a  year  when  he  retired.  If  it  had  been 
informed  of  the  fact  that  by  1786,  within  four  years  after 
Mrs.  Siddons's  first  victory  in  London,  that  great  actress 
had  acquired  "  the  ten  thousand  pounds  which  I  set  my 
heart  upon,  and  am  now  perfectly  at  ease  with  respect  to 
fortune,"  it  would  certainly  have  applauded  heartily,  nor 
did  it  think  the  less  of  Garrick  for  leaving  a  fortune  ten 
times  as  great  when  he  died.^  To  be  sure,  the  status  of  the 
profession,  like  the  theatre  in  which  it  moves  and  has  its 
being,  neither  was  nor  is  a  simple,  beautiful  fact  in  the 
best  of  all  possible  worlds.  The  stage  will  always  be 
crowded  with  contradictory  appearances,  —  success  and 
failure,  mediocrity  and  genius,  capitalists,  pensioners,  and 
poets.  Some  of  its  people  will  always  be  the  poorest  of  the 
poor  in  spite  of  pension  systems  and  actors'  funds,  and 
others  will  retire  with  great  fortunes  in  spite  of  the  fact 

^  Fitzgerald,  II,  79. 

*  Letters,  August  15,  1755  (ed.  Toynbee,  III,  331),  quoted  by  Doran, 
II,  91. 

'  Doran,  II,  256. 


I04         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

that  they  are  men  or  women  of  genius.  And  the  latter 
will  not  always  be  the  happier.  For  in  this  respect  the 
stage  mirrors  the  larger  world  of  which  it  is  a  part;  the 
web  of  its  life  also  is  spun  of  mingled  yarn,  good  and  ill 
together. 


Chapter  IV 


THE  MANAGERS 

IN  the  year  1799  ^^^  manager  of  Covent  Garden  The- 
atre explained  to  the  Lord  Chamberlain  some  of  the 
difficulties  of  his  position.  "The  ambition,"  he  wrote, 
"the  spleen,  and  rapacity,  that  are  to  be  found  in  all 
classes  of  men,  are  unhappily  too  often  prevalent  in  the 
Theatrical  World;  and  the  difficulty  of  obviating  the 
evils  arising  from  all  these  restless  propensities,  renders 
the  duties  of  a  Manager  painful  and  irksome  in  the  exe- 
cution." 1  A  melancholy  text!  There  is  much  to  be  said 
for  it,  but  fortunately  it  does  not  tell  the  whole  story. 

I  pointed  out  in  the  preceding  chapter  that  in  Shak- 
spere's  time  the  players  themselves  undertook  the  irksome 
business  of  management.  Of  the  housekeepers,  who 
hnanced  the  building  and  upkeep  of  the  playhouses,  I 
shall  treat  later.^  Let  it  be  remembered,  however,  that 
some  of  the  players  were  housekeepers  as  well,  and  that 
consequently  it  is  not  always  possible  to  draw  the  line 
sharply  as  regards  managerial  responsibility.  Moreover, 
I  am  bound  to  return  once  more  to  Henslowe.  Even 
Mr.  Greg's  invaluable  work  upon  the  Diary  has  not  yet 
eradicated  certain  totally  incorrect  views  as  to  Henslowe's 
activities.  He  has  been  represented  as  at  once  the  first 
and  the  most  unscrupulous  of  the  long  line  of  theatrical 
managers,  as  the  guilty  progenitor  of  the  so-called  the- 
atre trust  of  our  day,  —  indeed,  as  "  a  whole  theatre  trust 
in  himself,"  ^  whereas,  in  truth,  he  and  his  son-in-law, 

^  Observations  on  Differences  at  Covent  Garden,  p.  3. 
^  See  below,  pp.  203  fF. 

^  See  The  Elizabethan  Dramatic  Companies,  Publications  of  the  Modem 
Language  Association,  XXXV,  123  fF. 

105 


io6         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

Edward  Alleyn,  were  merely  the  housekeepers  of  the 
Bear  Garden  and  the  Rose,  and  later  of  the  Hope  and  the 
Fortune.  We  shall  see  presently  that  certain  transactions 
of  Elizabethan  housekeepers  and  actor-sharers  did  indeed 
have  a  slight  flavor  of  modern  trust  methods,^  but  these 
were  not  Henslowe's  transactions.  The  companies  who 
played  at  his  houses  sometimes  found  themselves  unable 
to  advance  the  money  required  for  the  purchase  of  the 
expensive  costumes  employed  in  their  productions,  or  for 
the  buying  of  plays,  the  wages  of  hirelings,  and  the  fees 
exacted  by  the  Master  of  the  Revels.  Accordingly,  they 
borrowed  from  Henslowe,  their  chief  housekeeper,  whose 
besetting  sin  was  that  he  kept  a  rather  full  diary,  in 
which  he  specified,  for  purposes  of  record,  what  the  com- 
panies intended  to  do  with  the  money  he  loaned  them. 
These  entries  certainly  do  not  imply  that  he  made  the 
appointments  and  purchases.  He  was  not  a  manager  in 
the  present  sense  of  the  term,  but  rather  "the  Banker  of 
the  Bankside."  ^  It  must  not  be  supposed,  however,  that 
he  was  merely  a  remote  investor,  who  had  no  concern  in 
the  practical  affairs  of  the  theatre.  The  actors  selected 
the  plays;  but,  since  they  often  had  to  borrow  from  him, 
and  since  his  security  (their  portion  of  the  gallery  re- 
ceipts) depended  upon  the  success  of  their  plays,  we  find 
them  repeatedly  appealing  not  merely  to  his  purse  but 
also  to  his  good  judgment.  They  require  a  loan;  and  so 
they  write  to  Henslowe  that  the  production  for  which 
they  need  it  is  certain  to  be  a  successful  venture,  and  that 
the  play  is  one  of  the  best  they  have  prepared  for  a  long 
time.^  Now  Henslowe,  though  he  was  not  a  producer, 
was  a  playgoer,  —  as  witness  the  fact  that  he  and  his 
partner  at  the  Rose  Theatre  in  1587  were  careful  to  pro- 
vide themselves  with  places  on  the  free  list,  —  and  so  he 
was  in  a  position  to  judge  as  to  the  merits  of  the  com- 

1  See  below,  pp.  153-155.  ^  Papers,  pp.  56,  84,  49,  etc. 

2  Cf.  Greg,  Diary,  II,  1 20-1 21. 


THE  MANAGERS  107 

pany's  plea.^  Again,  Henslowe's  pawnbroking  business 
brought  him  into  close  relations  with  the  players,  many 
of  whom  came  to  him  from  time  to  time  for  personal 
loans,  while  the  companies  frequently  bought  for  their 
productions  stage  costumes  which  he  had  for  sale  as  for- 
feited pledges.  And  there  was  still  another  line  of  com- 
munication between  him  and  the  players,  for  Edward 
Alleyn,  his  son-in-law  and  partner,  was  for  a  long  time  the 
leading  spirit  of  the  Admiral's  Men,  and  a  sharer  in  that 
and  other  companies  who  played  at  the  Henslowe  the- 
atres. Through  Alleyn,  Henslowe  doubtless  kept  in 
contact  with  the  company  management,  though  it  should 
be  clearly  understood  that  Alleyn  was  anything  but  a  tool 
in  his  father-in-law's  hands;  nor,  indeed,  was  he  connected 
with  all  the  companies  who  appeared  at  the  Rose,  the 
Hope,  and  the  Fortune. 

Henslowe  was  not  the  only  theatrical  proprietor  who 
had  good  reason  for  keeping  in  touch  with  the  company 
managers.  Thus,  Francis  Langley,  the  chief  owner  of  the 
Swan  Theatre,  loaned  money  to  the  Earl  of  Pembroke's 
Men  in  1597,  "for  providinge  of  apparell  fytt  and  neces- 
sarie  for  their  playenge"  at  his  house;  but  this  obligation 
did  not  prevent  them  from  seceding  in  a  body  to  the  rival 
money-lender  at  the  Rose.  And  in  or  about  1635  Prince 
Charles's  Men  abandoned  the  Salisbury  Court  Theatre, 
"leaving  it  destitute  both  of  a  service  and  Company."  2 
Fifty-nine  years  earlier  James  Burbage  had  built  The 
Theatre,  the  first  of  the  London  playhouses,  and  the 
chief  ownership  of  that  house  and  its  successors,  the 
Globe  and  the  Blackfriars,  remained  with  him  and  his 
sons  during  their  lifetimes.  Richard  Burbage  and  his 
brother  Cuthbert,  the  financial  man  of  the  family,  were 

^  Cf.  the  writer's  paper  on  the  Elizabethan  free  list,  Modern  Language 
Review,  April,  1920,  XV,  124  fF. 

^  See  Wallace,  EngHsche  Studien,  XLIII,  348;  Shakespeare  Society  Papers, 
IV,  96-97;  cf.  Murray,  I,  220-221. 


io8         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

well  content  to  leave  in  the  able  hands  of  John  Hemings 
the  business  management  of  the  great  company  which 
came  to  be  definitely  associated  with  them.  But  they 
wisely  maintained  close  and  friendly  relationships  with 
that  management.  James  Burbage  himself,  before  he 
built  The  Theatre,  had  been  one  of  the  leading  actors  of 
Leicester's  Men,  and  he  may  have  appeared  on  the 
boards  of  his  own  theatre.^  At  all  events,  his  son  Richard 
did,  and  he  and  his  brother  Cuthbert  took  pains  to 
strengthen  the  bonds  between  them  and  their  company. 
This  they  did  most  effectively  when,  upon  building  the 
Globe,  they  joined  "to  themselves  those  deserving  men, 
Shakspere,  Hemings,  .  .  .  and  others,  partners  in  the 
profits  of  that  they  call  the  House,"  —  that  is  to  say,  by 
admitting  them  as  housekeepers,  the  Burbage  brothers 
retaining  five  shares,  while  the  remaining  five  were  as- 
signed to  the  players.^  The  financial  aspect  of  this  ar- 
rangement will  bear  further  examination,  and  I  shall 
recur  to  it  in  a  later  chapter.  It  will  suffice  to  say  for  the 
moment  that  the  arrangement  was  profitable  to  all  con- 
cerned, and  made  for  good  management.  Its  success, 
moreover,  led  the  proprietors  of  the  Curtain,  the  Red 
Bull,  and  the  Fortune,  to  admit  some  of  their  actors  as 
housekeepers.^  These  relations  between  the  actors  and 
the  house-owners  are  worth  remembering,  because  they 
tended  to  stabilize  Elizabethan  theatrical  management; 
but  the  outstanding  phenomenon  of  that  period,  after  all, 
was  the  free  and  dignified  position  of  the  dramatic  com- 
panies. Freedom  of  production,  the  first  element  of  a 
free  theatre,  was  theirs;  theirs,  too,  were  the  respon- 
sibility and  the  profit  of  court  performance  and  the  less 
delectable  business  of  keeping  on  good  terms  with  the 

'  See  Murray,  I,  30-31. 
2  Halliwell-Phillipps,  Outlines,  I,  317-319. 

'  See  Chalmers  in  Variorum,  III,  507;  Henslowe  Papers,  pp.  13,  27-29; 
Wallace,  Three  London  Theatres,  pp.  8,  18. 


THE  MANAGERS  109 

Master  of  the  Revels.  In  a  word,  they  were  their  own 
"governors"  and  "masters."  And  the  course  of  events 
proved  that  responsible  self-government  and  competition 
produce  better  results  than  autocratic  monopoly. 

In  the  preceding  chapter  we  examined  those  methods 
and  regulations  of  the  Elizabethan  managers  which 
looked  toward  the  maintenance  of  company  discipline, 
and  we  concluded  that  these  regulations  worked.  Cer- 
tainly, the  general  prosperity  of  the  Elizabethan  com- 
panies argues  that  they  were  well  conducted.  Conversely, 
it  seems  clear  that  poor  company  discipline  had  some- 
thing to  do  with  the  thin  houses  of  Restoration  times. 
Neither  Sir  William  D'Avenant,  poet  laureate  and  suc- 
cessful playwright  as  he  was,  nor  yet  Tom  Killigrew,  for 
all  his  pretty  wit,  his  lying  abroad  for  his  country,  and 
his  prowess  as  court  jester,^  was  well  equipped  for  the 
task  of  management.  For  this  task,  under  the  monopo- 
listic patents  granted  them  by  the  king,  brought  them 
not  only  far  greater  powers  than  any  earlier  managers 
had  had,  but  also  far  greater  responsibilities.  Neither 
D'Avenant  nor  Killigrew,  moreover,  was  an  actor,  and  so 
they  did  not  have  the  advantage  of  such  intimate  contact 
with  the  players  as  Hemings  or  Nathaniel  Field  had  en- 
joyed, and  such  as  Garrick  was  to  have  later.  The  needs 
of  the  situation  soon  compelled  the  Restoration  managers 
to  appoint  deputies,  who  had  practically  full  control. 

Dryden,  in  the  preface  of  his  Don  Sebastian  (produced 
by  D'Avenant's  company  in  1690),  pays  glowing  tribute 
to  the  good  judgment  of  Sir  William's  deputy-manager  — 
none  other  than  Betterton  —  who  cut  the  play  by  twelve 
hundred  lines  and  yet  won  praise  from  the  author  for  his 
"care  and  excellent  action."  2  I  have  already  noted  that 
Killigrew,  meanwhile,  appointed  Charles  Hart  his  com- 
pany's "chief  .  .  .  and  sole  governour";  but  this  ap- 

^  Appendix  I,  p.  288;  Chalmers,  Apology,^.  527;  Lowe,  Betterton,  p.  70, 
*  Lowe,  Betterton,  p.  137. 


no         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

pointment  did  not  win  the  unqualified  approval  of  the 
company.  The  files  of  the  Lord  Chamberlain's  Office  for 
this  period  ^  contain  scores  of  angry  complaints  regis- 
tered against  him  by  the  players,  and  many  official  orders 
urging  them  to  obey,  or  attempting  to  arbitrate.  There 
were  times,  however,  when  the  players  took  the  law  into 
their  own  hands,  and  the  redoubtable  Jo  Hayns  on  one 
occasion  publicly  showed  his  contempt  for  the  acting- 
manager.  He  had  been  ordered  to  appear  as  a  Senator  in 
Catiline's  Conspiracy^  a  subordinate  part,  which  he  con- 
sidered beneath  his  dignity.  He  obeyed  orders,  however, 
and  came  on,  but  with  a  scaramouch  dress  on  his  back, 
a  short  pipe  in  his  mouth,  and  adorned  with  "Whiskers 
from  Ear  to  Ear."  He  was  thereupon  dismissed,  but 
continued  his  public  ridicule  of  the  manager  so  jauntily 
that  the  king,  who  loved  a  jest,  but  had  no  first-hand 
knowledge  of  the  disciplinary  needs  of  the  theatre, 
ordered  him  reinstated.^  Killigrew's  company,  indeed, 
was  at  all  times  restive  under  Hart's  regime,  and  it  did 
not  take  any  more  kindly  to  Mohun  ar  ^  Lacy  when  these 
actors  were  given  joint  authority  with  Hart.  The  actors, 
moreover,  complained  that  Killigrew  took  too  large  a 
share  of  the  profits.  In  short,  one  quarrel  followed  fast 
upon  another,  and,  though  the  Lord  Chamberlain  did  his 
best  to  restore  peace,  the  affairs  of  the  King's  Theatre 
went  from  bad  to  worse.^ 

It  seems  likely,  as  Mr.  R.  W.  Lowe  says,  that  D'Ave- 
nant,  comparatively  speaking,  "  lived  in  amity  with  the 
company  under  his  control";  ^  at  any  rate,  there  is  in  his 
case  no  documentary  evidence  of  disputes  so  bitter  as 
those  which  afflicted  the  other  house.  But  it  is  clear  that 
D'Avenant's  company  was  not  a  model  of  good  discipline. 

1  Public  Record  Office,  L.  C,  7/1. 

2  Lije  oj  Jo.  Hayns,  pp.  23-32. 

»  Cf.  Chalmers,  Apology,  pp.  528-530;  see  below,  p.  123. 
*  Betterton,  p.  107. 


THE  MANAGERS  in 

Reference  has  already  been  made  to  the  disgraceful  up- 
roar at  the  old  Red  Bull  in  1661,  when  one  of  the  players 
"fell  about  the  ears"  of  a  boy  who  sang  badly.  At  the 
Duke's  Theatre,  five  or  six  years  later,  conditions  were 
not  much  better,  and  one  feels  that  Pepys  complained 
justly  of  what  he  saw  there  on  September  5,  1667. 
D'Avenant's  company  was  playing  Heraclius,  which, 
says  Pepys,  "is  a  good  play,  but  they  did  so  spoil  it  with 
their  laughing,  and  being  all  of  them  out,  and  with  the 
noise  they  made  within  the  theatre,  that  I  was  ashamed  of 
it,  and  resolve  not  to  come  thither  again  a  good  while."  ^ 
Betterton,  when  he  came  to  be  manager  at  Lincoln's 
Inn  Fields,  found  this  problem  of  discipline  one  of  the 
most  vexing  of  all  that  confronted  him.  Later,  as  chief 
actor  and  manager  of  the  United  Company,^  he  stood  by 
the  old  system  of  forfeits  to  maintain  order  and  prompt- 
ness at  rehearsals,  —  as  witness  the  anecdote  of  the  fine 
imposed  upon  Cibber,  and  the  salary  which  went  with  it.^ 
Perhaps  these  fines  sometimes  served  their  purpose,  for 
managers  in  London  and  out  continued  to  exact  them  for 
generations  after  Betterton.  O'Keeffe,  for  example,  re- 
ports that  Mossop,  the  Irish  actor-manager  of  Garrick's 
time,  fined  an  actor  on  one  very  trying  occasion.  Mac- 
beth was  being  rehearsed,  and  the  actor  who  played 
Seyton  got  badly  confused  as  to  the  moment  when  he 
should  enter.  The  king  calls  Seyton  three  times  in  a 
single  speech: 

Seyton!  — 
I  am  sick  at  heart  when  I  behold  — 
Seyton,  I  say!  —  This  push 
Will  cheer  me  ever,  or  disseat  me  now. 


Seyton! 

The  third  call,  of  course,  is  Seyton's  cue,  but  the  young 
actor  who  took  that  part  appeared  at  xht  first  summons. 

^  McAfee,  pp.  301, 199.       ^  See  below,  p.  123.       '  See  above,  p.  82. 


112         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

Mossop  bade  him  go  back  and  wait  for  the  proper  mo- 
ment. Macbeth  continued  his  speech,  and  Seyton 
promptly  came  on  at  the  second  call.  At  this  Mossop  lost 
his  temper  and  fined  him  half-a-crown.  But  the  novice 
repeated  the  blunder  five  or  six  times  —  at  the  cost  of 
half-a-crown  each  time !  ^ 

No  doubt  Betterton  had  experienced  similar  dif^culties, 
not  merely  when  he  was  in  charge  of  the  United  Company 
at  Drury  Lane,  but  also  later,  after  he  and  some  of  his 
colleagues  had  revolted  and  reestablished  themselves 
independently.  At  best,  however,  the  efficacy  of  fines 
cannot  have  been  great  with  any  but  the  youngest 
players;  and  even  these  were  none  too  amenable  to  rea- 
son. Betterton  expressed  himself  plainly  on  this  subject 
when  Gildon  asked  him  to  account  for  "  the  decay  "  of  the 
stage.  "When  I  was  a  young  Player  under  Sir  William 
Davenant,"  said  Betterton,  "we  were  under  a  much  bet- 
ter Discipline,  we  were  obliged  to  make  our  Study  our 
Business,  which  our  young  Men  do  not  think  it  their  duty 
now  to  do;  for  they  now  scarce  ever  mind  a  Word  of  their 
Parts  but  only  at  Rehearsals^  and  come  thither  too  often 
scarce  recovered  from  their  last  Night's  Debauch."  And 
he  added  that  mere  novices  in  acting  "vainly  imagine 
themselves  Masters  of  that  Art"  and  "take  it  amiss  to 
have  the  Author  give  them  any  Instruction."  ^  This  is 
not  to  be  discounted  as  an  old  man's  lament  for  the  days 
that  are  no  more.  Booth,  who  was  trained  under  Better- 
ton,  agreed  that  the  manager  of  the  old  Drury  Lane 
company  found  it  quite  "impracticable  ...  to  keep 
their  Body  to  that  common  Order  which  was  necessary 
for  their  Support,"  and  that  few  of  them  took  any  pains 
except  "in  the  sole  Regard  of  their  Benefit-Plays."  * 

The  older  players  were  even  more  difficult  to  manage 
than  the  beginners,  and  Jo  Hayns  of  the  King's  Men  had 

1  Recollections,  I,  156-157.  '  Apology,  I,  315. 

2  Gildon,  Lije  oj  Betterton,  1710,  pp.  15-16. 


THE  MANAGERS  113 

his  counterparts  in  the  other  company.  Mr.  Lowe,  in  his 
admirable  study  of  Betterton,  has  put  the  case  suc- 
cinctly: "The  tragedians  and  comedians  quarrelled  as  to 
the  relative  values  of  their  particular  departments.  .  .  . 
This  dispute  took  practical  shape  when  a  new  play  was 
produced.  The  comedians  were  up  in  arms  immediately 
against  the  cost  and  trappings  of  tragedy,  or  the  trage- 
dians were  indignant  that  a  mere  fop  should  be  dressed 
more  expensively  than  Alexander  the  Great  or  Solyman 
the  Magnificent."  ^  The  long  and  short  of  it  is  that  the 
players  had  forgotten  how  to  govern  themselves.  They 
had  learned  to  distrust  and  disobey  the  leaders  who  had 
been  set  over  them  without  their  consent,  and  this  fatal 
habit  persisted,  even  when  new  opportunities  came  to 
manage  their  own  affairs  and  choose  their  own  leaders. 

In  1695  Betterton  and  those  of  his  colleagues  who  had 
joined  him  in  seceding  from  the  United  Company,  won  a 
new  license;  ^  but  the  failure  of  their  enterprise  was  fore- 
shadowed by  the  recurrence  of  the  old  squabbles.  Within 
a  year,  Dogget,  the  chief  of  the  comedians,  who  had 
scored  a  great  success  in  Love  for  Love,  the  first  produc- 
tion of  the  new  company,  signalized  his  displeasure  at  the 
prevailing  order  of  things  by  deserting  and  returning  to 
Drury  Lane.  By  way  of  making  up  for  their  loss.  Better- 
ton's  company  won  over  to  their  side  Jack  Verbruggen, 
one  of  the  best  of  their  rivals.^  All  this  took  place  in  spite 
of  the  old  regulations  which  sought  to  rule  out  such  com- 
petition, for  when  D'Avenant  and  Killigrew  started  there 
was  "a  private  Rule  or  Agreement  .  .  .  that  no  Play 
acted  at  one  House  should  be  attempted  at  the  other.  All 
the  capital  Plays  therefore  of  Shakespear,  Fletcher,  and 
Ben  Johnson  were  divided  between  them  by  the  approba- 
tion of  the  Court  and  their  own  alternate  Choice."  The 
patents,  moreover,  specifically  provided  that  "no  actor  or 

^  P.  156.  2  Apology,  I,  194. 

'  Apology,  I,  229;  Lowe,  Betterton,  pp.  156-157. 


114         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

other  person  employed  about  either  of  the  .  .  .  theatres, 
or  deserting  his  company,"  should  be  employed  by  the 
governor  of  the  other  company.^  And  yet  in  the  case  in 
question,  while  the  Lord  Chamberlain  ordered  Verbrug- 
gen  to  go  back  to  Drury  Lane  until  the  close  of  the  season, 
he  did  not  require  Dogget  to  return  to  his  postw  By  sus- 
taining in  this  way  those  who  opposed  Betterton's 
authority  at  Lincoln's  Inn  Fields,  the  Lord  Chamberlain 
did  not  improve  matters  there.  The  new  company  had 
been  very  successful  during  its  first  season,  but,  according 
to  Colley  Cibber,  "Experience  in  a  Year  or  two  shew'd 
them  that  they  had  never  been  worse  govern'd  than 
when  they  govern'd  themselves."  ^  Other  desertions  fol- 
lowed, and  further  transfers  of  players  from  one  house  to 
the  other,  and  the  Lord  Chamberlain  vainly  sought  to 
restore  order  by  an  absolute  prohibition  of  this  sort  of 
thing.  The  players  continued  to  do  what  they  liked,  and 
at  Lincoln's  Inn  Fields  confusion  became  worse  con- 
founded at  such  a  rate  that  in  November,  1700,  his  lord- 
ship, as  the  guardian  of  the  stage,  was  compelled  to  issue 
an  edict  which  commanded  Betterton  to  take  upon  him- 
self the  sole  management  of  the  company,  and  strictly 
enjoined  the  actors  to  obey  him.^ 

Lowe  suggests  that  while  in  Betterton's  company 
every  one  had  been  willing  to  play  the  captain  and  no- 
body the  private  soldier,  the  Drury  Lane  company  was 
under  better  control.  "The  actors,"  he  says,  "were  ruled 
with  a  rod  of  iron  by  .  .  .  the  active  intriguer  who  had 
by  this  time  contrived  to  obtain  a  practical  monopoly  of 
the  power  of  the  patent,  Christopher  Rich."  *  On  this 
point  Mr.  Lowe  is  not  altogether  in  accord  with  Colley 
Cibber,  who  was  working  under  Rich  at  the  time,  and 

1  Apology,  I,  91;  patent  in  Lowe's  ed.,  I,  lix-lx. 

2  Apology,  I,  228;  cf.  Lowe,  Betterton,  p.  157. 

'  Apology,  I,  228  ff.;  II,  17  ff.;  I,  315  (Lowe's  note);  Lowe,  Betterton,  p. 

157- 

*  Betterton,  T^.  155. 


) 


THE  MANAGERS  115 

who  reports  that  Rich  gave  the  actors  "more  Liberty, 
and  fewer  Days  Pay,  than  any  of  his  Predecessors."  ^ 
Doubtless  the  Drury  Lane  company  was  less  troubled  by 
insubordination  and  general  headlessness  than  its  rival, 
for  Rich,  whatever  his  faults,  was  a  shrewder  manager 
than  Betterton;  but  that  he  also  had  his  troubles  appears 
from  the  very  fact  that  first  Betterton  and  his  fellows,  — 
and  later  Cibber,  Wilks,  and  the  rest,  —  rebelled  and 
established  themselves  independently.  Cibber,  on  look- 
ing back  at  these  events,  ascribed  the  success  achieved  by 
his  partners  and  himself  largely  to  their  reformation  of 
"the  many  false  Measures,  Absurdities,  and  Abuses"  of 
their  predecessors.  They  rewarded  actors  who  did  good 
work,  they  kept  their  subordinates  busy,  and  they  main- 
tained order.  "  Industry,"  says  Colley,  "  we  knew  was  the 
Life  of  our  Business;  that  it  not  only  conceal'd  Faults, 
but  was  of  equal  Value  to  greater  Talents  without  it; 
which  the  Decadence  once  of  Betterton's  Company  in 
Lincoln's-Inn-Fields  had  lately  shewn  us  a  Proof  of."  ^ 

But  this  second  golden  age  —  that  happy  period  when, 
according  to  our  apologist,  both  actors  and  managers  were 
in  their  highest  bliss,  did  not  last  forever.  Again  and 
again,  as  time  went  on,  some  of  the  old  difficulties  cropped 
up  anew.  "Forfeit  them,  I'll  forfeit  'em!"  says  Mist,  the 
country  impressario  in  Reynolds's  comedy  of  Manage- 
ment (1799) :  "First  call, new  pantomime, and  not  an  actor 
come  to  rehearsal!"  Verily,  it  was  the  old  old  story, — 
with  only  the  difference,  perhaps,  that  in  the  days  of 
Henslowe  and  of  Robert  Dawes  ^  the  players  contracted 
to  pay  their  fines  if  they  were  late,  whereas  in  Reynolds's 
time  and  Garrick's  they  protested  vigorously.  Listen,  for 
example,  to  Kitty  Clive,  "the  indomitable  Pivy,"  ad- 
dressing David  Garrick  in  1765:  —  "I  beg  you  would  do 
me  the  favour  to  let  me  know  if  it  was  by  your  order  that 
my  money  was  stopped  last  Saturday.  ...   I  hope  this 

^  Apology,  I,  252.  2  Apology,  II,  119.  '  See  above,  p.  74. 


ii6         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

stopping  of  money  is  not  a  French  fashion;  I  believe  you 
will  not  find  any  part  of  the  English  laws  that  will  sup- 
port this  sort  of  treatment  of  an  actress,  who  has  a  right, 
from  her  character  and  service  on  the  stage,  to  expect 
some  kind  of  respect.  ...  I  had  my  money  last  year 
stopped  at  the  beginning  of  the  season  for  not  coming  to 
rehearse  two  parts  that  I  could  repeat  in  my  sleep,  and 
which  must  have  cost  two  guineas,  besides  the  pleasure  of 
coming  to  town."  ^  Perhaps  Garrick  remitted  this  fine; 
in  any  case  he  was  well  advised  in  insisting  upon  regular 
and  orderly  rehearsals,  even  at  the  risk  of  boring  his  stars. 
Hard,  painstaking  labor  was  certainly  one  of  the  reasons 
for  Garrick's  success  both  as  actor  and  manager.  No 
wonder,  then,  that  failure  and  virtual  bankruptcy  beset 
the  managers  of  the  other  house,  and  certain  of  Garrick's 
successors  at  Drury  Lane  who  had  neither  his  genius  nor 
his  capacity  for  taking  pains.  "I  was  at  the  Rehearsal 
of  Woman  s  a  Riddle^'  writes  Genest  ^  concerning  a 
Covent  Garden  play  of  1780.  "Lewis  interrupted  the 
performance  to  show  one  of  the  actors  a  paragraph  in  the 
newspaper  —  Mrs.  Mattocks  requested  the  Prompter  to 
take  good  care  of  her,  as  she  was  very  imperfect  —  and 
Miss  Younge  did  not  attend  at  all."  And  the  later  man- 
agers of  Drury  Lane  were  even  more  flagrantly  careless. 
"I  call  the  loved  shade  of  Garrick  to  witness,"  writes  the 
younger  Colman  in  the  preface  to  his  Iron  Chesty  a  play 
which  failed  at  Drury  Lane  in  1796,  "that  there  never 
was  one  fair  Rehearsal  of  the  Play  —  never  one  rehearsal 
wherein  one,  or  two,  or  more,  of  the  Performers,  very 
essential  to  the  piece,  were  not  absent;  and  all  the  re- 
hearsals which  I  attended,  were  so  slovenly  and  irregular 
that  the  ragged  master  of  a  theatrical  Barn  might  have 
blush'd  for  the  want  of  discipline."  ^ 

*  Garrick's  Private  Correspondence,  I,  203. 

^  VI,  396. 

'  2d  ed.,  1796,  p.  iv. 


THE  MANAGERS  117 

Carelessness  at  rehearsals,  however,  was  not  the  cause, 
but  merely  a  symptom,  of  the  evils  of  the  time.  Other 
troubles  aplenty  afflicted  the  theatres.  Among  them  may 
be  mentioned  the  practice  —  dating  back  to  Garrick's 
time,  and  continued  under  Sheridan  —  of  allowing  ad- 
vances to  certain  improvident  actors  and  then  permitting 
them  to  extort  additional  loans  on  plea  of  illness,  or  on  the 
insistence  of  bailiffs  who  threatened  to  stop  performances 
by  arresting  the  debtors.  Fitzgerald  tells  of  an  unpleasant 
occurrence  in  1772,  when  the  managers  of  Drury  Lane 
attached  the  box-office  proceeds  of  Weston's  benefit,  — 
Weston  being  heavily  in  their  debt  at  the  time.  The 
actor  promptly  sent  them  word  that  he  had  been  arrested 
and  could  not  play,  but  when  the  night  came  and  the 
management  apologized  to  the  audience  for  his  absence, 
Weston  himself,  under  the  escort  of  a  bailiff,  appeared  in 
the  gallery,  accused  the  managers  of  lying,  and  declared 
himself  ready  to  act  if  they  would  give  him  his  money. 
Then  followed  an  uproar  which  ended  only  when  the 
managers  paid  off  the  bailiff  and  Weston  proceeded  to  fill 
his  part.i 

I  have  already  suggested  that  the  problem  of  satisfying 
the  audiences  was,  in  certain  respects,  much  more  diffi- 
cult in  the  eighteenth  century  than  it  is  to-day,  when 
playgoers  no  longer  consider  themselves  the  ultimate 
judges  upon  any  and  all  points  at  issue  between  individ- 
ual players,  or  between  players  and  managers.  The 
eighteenth-century  audience,  or  the  town  in  general,  was 
frequently  appealed  to,  for  instance,  on  another  point 
which  could  hardly  have  arisen  if  discipline  had  been 
satisfactory.  The  point  is  related  to  the  players'  cher- 
ished claim  to  their  cast  of  characters,^  and  the  fact  to  be 
observed  is  that  not  only  did  the  players  regard  parts 
once  assigned  to  them  as  their  personal  property,  but  that 
they  frequently  insisted  upon  choosing  their  own  roles 

^  Fitzgerald,  II,  318.  ^  See  above,  p.  95. 


ii8         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

when  a  new  play  or  a  revival  was  cast.  Thus,  in  1736, 
Mrs.  Cibber  and  Mrs.  Clive  waged  a  terrific  paper-war 
for  the  part  of  Polly  in  the  Beggar  s  Opera  revival  at 
Drury  Lane.  Their  respective  arguments  and  counter- 
blasts, as  it  happened,  amused  the  town,  advertised  the 
production,  and  did  no  one  any  harm.  This  particular 
dispute  was  more  or  less  amicably  settled  before  it  had 
gone  too  far:  Mrs.  Clive  retained  the  part  of  Polly  in  this 
revival,  but  graciously  resigned  it  to  Mrs.  Cibber  later, 
and  played  Lucy  instead.^  Occasionally,  however,  when 
the  difference  of  opinion  rested  between  player  and  man- 
ager, the  results  were  less  happy.  Such  a  case  was  that  of 
Mrs.  Hamilton,  the  actress  whose  distress  had  so  much 
to  do  with  the  inception  of  the  Theatrical  Fund.  Her 
troubles,  it  appears,  were  largely  brought  upon  her  by 
her  own  obstinacy.  She  had  been  a  favorite  of  John  Rich 
at  Covent  Garden,  and  after  his  death  she  believed  that 
her  judgment  and  her  wishes  would  carry  equal  weight 
with  Bancroft  and  Beard,  the  new  managers.  In  1762 
Beard  asked  her  to  play  the  part  of  Lady  Wronglove  in 
his  revival  of  The  Ladies'  Last  Stake.  She  stubbornly  re- 
fused, for  she  wanted  the  role  of  Mrs.  Conquest,  which 
was  decidedly  unsuited  to  her  years  and  had  already 
been  given  to  Miss  Macklin,  a  younger  actress.  The 
manager  finally  threatened  to  fine  her  £20  if  she  did  not 
obey  orders;  whereupon  she  offered  her  resignation,  and 
was  astonished  to  have  it  accepted.^ 

This  unhappy  incident  practically  brought  Mrs. 
Hamilton's  professional  career  to  an  end,  but  the  pub- 
licity given  to  her  later  misfortunes,  while  it  pointed  a 
moral,  did  not  by  any  means  put  an  end  to  the  old  abuse. 
The  Covent  Garden  playbill  of  May  7, 1783,^  for  example, 
publicly  scolded  one  of  the  actresses  of  that  theatre  for 

*  C.  E.  Pearce,  Polly  Peachum,  pp.  258-266;  cf.  The  Beggar's  Pantomime; 
or.  The  Contending  Columbines,  1736. 

*  Genest,  IV,  658-659.  ^  British  Museum  collection. 


THE  MANAGERS  119 

refusing  a  parr,  and  pracncaiiy  invited  the  audience  to 
rebuke  her,  as  follows: 

Miss  Younge  having  refused  perfonnL-.z  the  Part  of  \lola, 
Mrs.  Robinson  has  kindly  undertakm  thi:  ..-xzter  at  short 
Notice,  and  the  Audience  is  reouested  tc  zx-zr.i  ihe  usual  in- 
dulgence to  the  substitute. 

In  1799,  once  more,  the  complaint  of  the  Co  vent  Garden 
actors  attacked  particularly  a  regulation  which  had  bee- 
introduced  by  the  managers  two  years  earlier, —  :.-i: 
which  provided  tor  "the  excessive  fine  of  Thirty  P:  .:~ii 
instead  of  Five,  for  the  refusal  of  a  character."  This 
regulation,  they  held,  gave  the  management  "  the  power 
of  equalizing  professional  taioits,  and  making  the  First 
actors  submit  to  the  work  of  the  lowest."  Tlie  managers* 
reply  is  to  the  point:  "Mudi  disgust  has  been  given  to 
Authors,  and  much  injury  has  been  sustained  by  the 
Property,  by  the  rejecticm  of  Characters."  Tlieir  treas- 
urer adds  that  the  five-^xxmd  fine  had  been  imposed  but 
four  or  five  times  in  the  preceding  fifteen  years,  the  im- 
plication being  that  the  number  of  fines  was  much  smaller 
than  the  number  of  refiisals  to  accept  parts.  The  heavier 
fine,  apparently,  was  intended  to  counteract  the  re5::l:s  of 
this  leniency,  and  it  accompli^ed  its  purpise  The 
happy  effect  of  it  has  been  notorious,"  says  the  r.iij^-i^ers, 
"  for  .  .  .  not  a  single  fine  has  been  imposed  since  on  any 
individual  in  the  company."  Tlie  Lord  Cr.-:"rer..i:-. 
agreed  with  them,  and  refused  to  order  a  chi.^e  : ::  zs.t 
rule.- 

One  other  discipliz^srv  re^ulatio"  which  is  re'-heweh  in 
this  Covent  Garden  dispute  ntay  be  ~.en-  :-ei  here. 
The  abuse  which  it  was  intended  :o  c ;  r  :  -  :  :  e  i  n: :.ny 
an  outbreak  on  the  r:r:  :^i.be  :ef  r:  :ere:i  Them- 
selves cheated,  an::  n  -:e  :  .my  nmccen:  p  .^ye.-s  f.ner 
with  the  guilty — eve:    :.   :r.t  extent  of  forcing  :be:    :: 


I20         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

apologize  publicly  for  offenses  they  had  never  committed. 
Mr.  Mist,  the  country  manager  in  Reynolds's  comedy, 
alludes  to  our  point.  He  breaks  out  angrily  when  he 
hears  that  his  chief  actor  is  indisposed  and  will  not  per- 
form. Mist  decides  at  once  that  the  actor  is  shamming 
illness,  and  gives  up  all  hope  of  him  till  he  has  spent  the 
four  pounds  his  benefit  had  brought  him  the  night  before. 
In  the  Covent  Garden  dispute  the  players  protested 
against  what  they  describe  as  a  most  obnoxious  article 
in  their  contracts,  —  the  Sick  Clause,  which  held  them 
liable  to  deductions  in  pay  in  case  of  absence  from  the 
theatre.  No  manager,  they  maintain,  should  demand 
that  an  actor  be  exempt  from  the  natural  shocks  that 
flesh  is  heir  to.  "The  disadvantages  attendant  upon  these 
inherent  infirmities,"  they  argue,  ought  to  be  "  charged  to 
him  who  receives  the  benefit  of  the  actor's  capability,"  — 
which  seems  a  fair  enough  proposition.  The  managers 
countered,  however,  with  a  serious  charge.  They  point 
out  that  the  Sick  Clause  was  an  old  regulation  which  had 
been  in  force  under  Rich,  and  had  been  continued  because 
it  was  felt  to  be  a  necessary  safeguard.  "The  feigning  of 
illness,"  they  hold,  "is  the  commonest  trick  of  the  Pro- 
fession, and  if  pretending  to  be  sick  could  exempt  them 
from  their  duty,  while  they  were  entitled  to  their  Salary, 
caprice  and  idleness  would  soon  be  the  certain  destruc- 
tion of  the  Theatre."  They  felt  called  upon,  further,  to 
mention  an  actual  case  of  malingering  within  their  recent 
experience.  But  they  state  also  that  deductions  under  the 
Sick  Clause  were  very  infrequently  made,  and  not  at  all 
in  cases  of  genuine  illness.^  The  chances  are  that  com- 
paratively few  of  the  players  stooped  to  this  mean  device. 
Certain  other  ways  in  which  they  cooperated  or  clashed 
with  their  managers  will  appear  later;  still  others  will  be 
mentioned  in  connection  with  what  follows. 

^  Observations,  p.  60. 


THE  MANAGERS  121 

It  is  time  to  look  at  our  subject  from  a  somewhat  dif- 
ferent point  of  view.  I  have  already  referred  from  time  to 
time  to  the  causes  which  brought  about  changes  in  man- 
agement, and  to  the  bearing  of  this  or  that  personality 
upon  the  fortunes  of  theatres  and  players.  A  brief 
chronological  summary  of  managers  and  managements 
at  the  two  patent  houses  will  serve  to  focus  this  discus- 
sion anew.  It  will  necessitate  some  repetition,  but  this, 
perhaps,  may  be  pardonable,  for  to  the  best  of  my  knowl- 
edge no  convenient  summary  of  this  sort  is  available 
elsewhere. 

I  cannot  attempt  a  chronology  of  Elizabethan  the- 
atrical management,  nor  is  it  needed.  For  details  the 
reader  must  go  to  Mr.  J.  T.  Murray's  massive  volumes  on 
the  English  Dramatic  Companies;  the  broad  outlines  have 
already  been  sketched  here.  The  reader  will  recall  that 
much  evidence  is  available  concerning  the  Henslowe 
companies  from  1592  to  1603,  and  again,  from  161 2 
to  1616,^  —  a  period  of  company  supremacy  and  a 
time  during  which  no  noticeable  changes  occurred  in 
the  characteristic  Elizabethan  shareholding  system,  as 
sketched  above.  We  have  also  a  mass  of  documents  due 
to  Elizabethan  theatrical  litigation  ^  and  a  group  of  de- 
cisions and  orders  of  the  Lord  Chamberlain,  from  which 
is  derived  most  of  what  we  know  about  the  management 
of  the  Shakspere-Burbage  theatres  and  all  others  outside 
the  Henslowe-Alleyn  group.  These  materials  do  not  tell 
a  well-rounded  story,  but  they  do  show  that  the  com- 
panies gradually  lost  their  independence,  even  before  the 
closing  of  the  theatres. 

After  the  Restoration  the  documents  are  comparatively 
plentiful,^  and  details  stand  out  more  clearly.    Pepys  re- 

^  Cf.  Henslowe  s  Diary,  I,  xxii;  Papers,  pp.  63-91. 

*  For  a  convenient  bibliography  of  this  material,  see  Lee's  Lije  oj  Shake- 
speare, ed.,  191 5,  pp.  310-31 1,  and,  for  further  materials,  the  appendices  in 
Halliwell-Phillipps,  Outlines,  7th  ed.,  vol.  I. 

'  Most  of  the  evidence  for  the  first  years  of  the  new  era  appears  in 


122         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

ports  the  players  at  work  as  early  as  June  6,  1660,  and 
Downes  ^  suggests  that  Rhodes,  the  bookseller,  had  ob- 
tained from  General  Monk  a  license  to  form  a  company 
as  early  as  March  of  that  year.  His  men,  with  Betterton 
at  their  head,  acted  at  the  old  Cockpit,  one  of  the  small 
"private"  theatres  of  pre-Restoration  times.  By  August 
of  the  same  year  Sir  Henry  Herbert,  the  old  Master  of  the 
Revels,  who  was  then  eagerly  hoping  for  a  new  teeming  of 
the  golden  harvest  he  used  to  gather  in  the  days  of 
James  I  and  Charles  I,  had  occasion  to  send  an  order  to 
three  companies  which  had  been  formed  by  that  time,  — 
to  the  Rhodes-Betterton  company  already  mentioned,  to 
the  Red  Bull  company  (composed  of  older  players  such 
as  Mohun  and  Hart,  veterans  of  the  war  and  of  the  old 
theatres),  and  to  still  a  third,  at  the  old  Salisbury  Court, 
of  which  little  is  known  except  the  names  of  Beeston,  its 
manager,  and  George  Jolly,  its  chief  player.  The  career 
of  the  three  companies  as  such,  however,  was  short-lived, 
for  within  a  day  of  Sir  Henry  Herbert's  order  King 
Charles  II  issued  to  D'Avenant  and  Killigrew  the  patents 
which  gave  them  the  right  to  set  up  their  companies,  and 
excluded  all  others.^  The  new  order  of  things  naturally 
displeased  Sir  Henry  Herbert,  for  it  took  from  him  most 
of  his  ancient  prerogatives  and  a  goodly  portion  of  his 
fees.  Shortly  after,  indeed,  the  Merry  Monarch  ordered 
that  "from  henceforth  no  new  play  shall  be  acted  by 
either  of  the  .  .  .  companies,  containing  any  passages 
offensive  to  piety  and  good  manners  nor  any  old  or  re- 
vived play,  containing  any  such  offensive  passages,  until 
the  same  shall  be  corrected  and  purged^'  not  by  the  staid 
old  Master  of  the  Revels,  but  by  jolly  Tom  Killigrew  and 
courtly  Sir  William,  —  "  the  governors  of  the  said  respec- 

Downes,  Pepys,  Sir  Henry  Herbert  {Office  Book,  see  Malone,  and  Adams's 

cd.),  Wright's  Historia,  and  Gehest.  The  best  discussion  of  early  Restoration 

conditions  is  that  in  Lowe's  Betterton,  pp.  59  fF.,  which  I  have  freely  utilized. 

*  P.  17.  ^  Patent  of  August  21,  1660,  in  Malone,  III,  249-251. 


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THE  MANAGERS  123 

tive  companies" !  ^  Sir  Henry  objected  in  vain.  The  best 
he  could  do  was  to  effect  an  ungrateful  compromise, 
which  brought  him  a  lump-sum  of  money  and  the  nominal 
continuance  of  his  office.  Meanwhile,  as  Lowe  has  shown, 
the  Red  Bull  and  Cockpit  companies  had  temporarily 
joined  forces,  until  October,  1660.  A  month  later  D'/^ve- 
nant  and  Killigrew  were  ready:  they  chose  their  players 
from  those  who  had  survived  the  process  of  elimination, 
selected  deputy  managers,  and  started  to  work  in  earnest. 
Thereafter,  the  two  companies  continued  independ- 
ently until  1682,  when  the  first  reunion  under  the  new 
regime  was  forced  upon  them  as  a  measure  of  self-preser- 
vation. The  causes  of  the  ill-success  of  the  theatres  at 
this  time  we  have  already  touched  upon.  Political  dis- 
turbance was  rife,  and  there  were  disastrous  periods  of 
enforced  silence  upon  the  stage.  And  when  these  causes 
did  not  operate,  there  were  others.  The  Restoration 
theatre,  in  spite  of  the  great  sums  of  money  and  the  bril- 
liant writing  and  acting  lavished  upon  it,  seems  to  have 
appealed  primarily  to  a  limited  audience:  to  those  who 
were  of  the  court,  or  near  the  inner  circles  of  London 
society,  —  to  the  fashionable  world,  in  short,  rather  than 
to  the  great  mass  of  understanders  who  crowded  the  pit 
and  gave  fit  auditory  to  the  plays  in  the  old  days.  Killi- 
grew's  company  had  the  older  players,  and  found  the 
greater  difficulty  in  pleasing  the  new  tastes  of  the  town. 
Also,  it  suffered  more  than  its  rival  from  dissension 
within  the  ranks.  It  is  easy  to  understand,  therefore,  why 
the  union  of  the  companies  when  it  came  (Cibber  says  it 
was  brought  about  "  by  the  King's  Advice,  which  perhaps 
amounted  to  a  Command")  ^  found  the  Duke's  Men  the 
stronger  of  the  two.  They  —  or  rather  their  patentees  — 
simply  absorbed  the  other  company,  after  buying  off 

1  Patent  of  1663,  in  Apology,  ed.  Lowe,  I,  Ix.  There  is  a  similar  provision 
in  the  patent  of  1660. 
*  Apology,  I,  96. 


124         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

their  leading  players,  Charles  Hart  and  Edward  Kynas- 
ton.  These  two  went  so  far  as  to  sign  an  agreement 
whereby  they  pledged  themselves  to  go  to  law  with 
Charles  Killigrew,  son  and  successor  of  Thomas,  if  that 
should  be  necessary  to  carry  out  their  bargain.^  But  the 
patentee  of  the  King's  Men  was  quite  willing  to  sell  his 
rights  to  the  United  Company,  and  this  he  did  —  for  a 
rental  of  three  pounds  a  day  for  the  use  of  Drury  Lane 
Theatre,  and  three  of  the  twenty  shares  of  the  new  com- 
pany. Ten  shares,  further,  were  set  aside  for  the  actors, 
and  the  remainder  for  the  other  patentees.^  D'Avenant 
and  the  elder  Killigrew  were  both  dead  by  1690,  however, 
and  their  successors  took  as  little  interest  in  the  property 
as  one  might  expect,  in  view  of  the  fact  that  the  United 
Company  rarely  paid  its  bills,  not  to  speak  of  dividends. 
The  actors'  shares  probably  lapsed,  or  were  sold  out,  for 
the  same  reason;  at  all  events,  we  rarely  hear  of  them 
again. 

It  was  while  the  fortunes  of  the  theatre  were  at  this  low 
ebb  that  Christopher  Rich  stepped  in.  He  acquired 
D'Avenant's  share  in  1691,  and  additional  holdings  as 
occasion  offered:  one  account  credits  him  with  buying  the 
whole  patent  at  auction  for  eighty  pounds! '  Rich  seems 
to  have  become  managing  director  at  once,  and  Cibber 
remarks  that  he  managed  the  accounts  so  skilfully  — 
from  his  own  point  of  view  —  that  he  soon  tired  out  the 
rest  of  the  patentees,  and  presently  stood  in  his  bad 
eminence,  alone.  As  "it  cannot  be  supposed,"  says  Col- 
ley,  "that  the  contested  Accounts  of  a  twenty  years 
Wear  and  Tear  in  a  Play-house  could  be  fairly  adjusted 
by  a  Master  in  Chancery  under  four-score  Years  more,  it 

^  October  14,  1681  (printed  in  Gildon,  Lije  oj  Better  ton,  pp.  8-9). 

2  Fitzgerald,  I,  152-158,  273;  Apology,  I,  97. 

3  British  Museum,  Addl.  MS.  20,  726;  Fitzgerald,  I,  241-242,  266;  Lowe's 
note,  Apology,  I,  181;  cf.  II,  99.  Rich  described  himself  in  1705  as  "a  pur- 
chaser under  the  patents  to  above  the  value  of  £2,000."  (Lowe's  note. 
Apology,  I,  329.) 


THE  MANAGERS  125 

will  be  no  Surprize  that  by  the  Neglect,  or  rather  the 
Discretion,  of  other  Proprietors  in  not  throwing  away 
good  Money  after  bad,  this  Hero  of  a  Menager,  who  alone 
supported  the  War,  should  in  time  so  fortify  himself  by 
Delay,  and  so  tire  his  Enemies,  that  he  became  sole 
Monarch  of  his  Theatrical  Empire  and  left  the  quiet 
Possession  of  it  to  his  Successors."  ^  Gibber,  however, 
paints  him  blacker  than  he  was,  for  Rich's  fellow-owners 
stated  in  1709  that,  whereas  they  had  invested  £20,000 
since  1682  in  "necessaries  for  the  theatre"  they  had  at 
one  time  cleared  £1,000  a  year.  This,  they  say,  was  be- 
fore Lady  Day,  1695,  "since  which  time  they  became 
yearly  considerable  losers."  ^  These  losses  were  no 
doubt  the  result  of  the  new  break  in  the  ranks  which  had 
come  that  year. 

It  is  clear  that  the  Rich  management  sought  to  save 
expense  by  cutting  down  salaries,  and  incidentally  by 
giving  important  parts  to  younger  (and  cheaper)  players. 
Since  there  was  no  rival  company  to  fear,  this  procedure 
may  have  seemed  reasonably  safe;  but  the  actors,  with 
the  support  of  the  public,  soon  undeceived  the  manage- 
ment, Betterton  revolted,  together  with  Mrs.  Barry,  Mrs. 
Bracegirdle,  Dogget,  Gave  Underbill,  and  half-a-dozen 
more  of  the  company's  best;  and  on  March  25,  1695, 
King  William  granted  them  a  license  of  their  own.  We 
have  already  seen  that  the  success  of  the  new  company 
was  but  short-lived,  though  its  activities  forced  Drury 
Lane  to  raise  salaries  and  carry  on  its  affairs  at  a  steady 
loss.  The  times  were  not  such  as  to  promise  success  to 
two  houses  where  one  had  held  its  own  but  indifferently 
or  not  at  all.  We  have  seen  that  discipline  was  poor,  and 
the  interest  of  the  public,  at  best,  was  but  lukewarm. 
Just  before  the  close  of  the  century,  therefore,  when 
Jeremy  Gollier  delivered  his  terrific  broadside  against  the 

1  Apology,  II,  8;  cf.  II,  98. 
*  Fitzgerald,  1,271-272. 


126         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

theatres,  he  left  managers  and  players  "in  despair  their 
empty  pit  to  fill."  ^ 

In  the  long  nm,  Betterton's  company  had  decidedly 
the  worst  of  the  argument  with  its  rivals.  The  Drury 
Lane  players  kept  better  order,  and,  like  the  Duke's 
company  before  the  first  amalgamation,  they  had  most  of 
the  promising  young  players,  Cibber  and  Wilks  among 
them.  At  this  time,  however.  Sir  John  Vanbrugh  stepped 
in  to  help  Betterton  and  his  followers.  He  financed  and 
supervised  the  building  of  a  new  house  for  them,  and  by 
April,  1705,  they  were  installed  at  the  Haymarket.  Van- 
brugh now  took  up  the  reins  with  the  assistance,  perhaps, 
of  Congreve;  2  but  neither  this  change  nor  yet  the  success 
of  Farquhar's  plays  and  the  introduction  of  Italian  opera, 
really  improved  matters.  By  1706  Vanbrugh  had  prac- 
tically given  up,  and  left  the  players  to  their  own  re- 
sources. In  the  summer  of  that  year,  according  to 
Downes,  he  gave  leave  to  Booth,  Verbruggen,  "and  all 
the  Young  Company  to  Act  .  .  .  what  Plays  they  cou'd 
by  their  Industry  get  up  for  their  own  Benefit.  .  .  .  But 
in  all  that  time  their  Profit  Amounted  not  to  half  their 
Salaries,  they  received  in  Winter."  ^  Vanbrugh,  indeed, 
had  earlier  seen  the  beginning  of  the  end,  and  had  pro- 
posed to  Rich  and  the  Lord  Chamberlain  a  new  union  of 
the  companies.  But  Rich,  who  was  then  prospering, 
demurred  or  at  least  pretended  to  do  so.^ 

Rich  realized,  however,  that  the  court  wished  to  see 
some  provision  made  for  the  Haymarket  company,  and 
so  he  proceeded  to  protect  himself.  For  a  time,  it  appears, 
he  secretly  financed  one  Owen  Swiney,  a  genial  Irishman 
who  at  the  beginning  of  the  season  of  1706-7,  relieved 
Vanbrugh  of  the  Haymarket,  its  company,  and  all  its 
equipment,  for  an  annual  rent  of  about  £700.    Cibber 

^  Dryden,  To  Mr.  Granville  on  his  Heroic  Love,  1698;  Lowe,  Betterton, 
p.  162. 

2  See  above,  pp.  33-34- 

'  Roscius  Anglicanus,'^.  c^o.  *  Fitzgerald,  I,  241. 


THE  MANAGERS  127 

notes  that  Rich  consented  to  let  Swiney  strengthen  his 
company  by  such  recruits  from  Drury  Lane  as,  "either 
from  IncHnation  or  Discontent,  might  be  wilHng  to  come 
over  to  him,"  because  Rich  "had  a  mind  both  Companies 
should  be  clandestinely"  under  his  control. ^  Wilks,  Gib- 
ber, Mrs.  Oldfield,  and  many  others  did  go  over,  —  and 
then  Swiney  and  Rich  fell  out!  The  wily  old  man  of 
Drury  Lane  sought  during  the  next  year  to  combat  the 
superior  acting  at  the  Haymarket  by  bringing  upon  his 
stage  a  riot  of  rope-dancers,  singers,  jugglers,  "and  other 
exotick  Performers."  ^  The  Haymarket  company  drew 
well  for  a  short  time,  but  the  acoustics  of  their  house  were 
very  bad,'  and  they  doubtless  had  other  troubles.  At  any 
rate,  a  second  union  of  the  companies  was  sought  and 
accomplished  on  the  last  day  of  December,  1707. 

Certain  new  characters  appeared  upon  the  scene  in  this 
connection.  A  certain  Sir  Thomas  Skipwith,  who  had 
long  held  a  considerable  number  of  Drury  Lane  shares 
without  ever  getting  a  dividend,  made  a  free  gift  of  them 
to  his  friend  Colonel  Brett,  who  was  also  a  friend  of  Col- 
ley  Cibber's,  and  had  strong  influence  at  court.  On  Cib- 
ber's  advice,  Brett  obtained  from  the  Lord  Chamberlain 
an  order  which  brought  back  the  late  Haymarket  actors 
to  Drury  Lane,  and  reconstituted  the  monopoly  of  the 
drama  there.  The  Haymarket,  at  the  same  time,  ob- 
tained the  monopoly  of  the  opera.  The  reunited  com- 
pany appeared  once  more  at  Drury  Lane  on  January  13, 
1708;  but  this  time  Rich  found  conditions  somewhat 
changed.  Brett  at  once  asserted  his  right  to  a  share  in 
the  management,  and  about  two  months  later  he  for- 
mally made  over  his  authority  to  his  friend  Cibber, 
together  with  Wilks  and  Estcourt.  For  a  short  time  these 
three  had  the  upper  hand,  but  within  a  year  Rich  con- 
trived to  rid  himself  of  Brett,  and  so  his  unsought-for 

1  Apology,  I,  331,  332.  3  Id.,  II,  2. 

2  Id,  1,332  flF.;  II,  6. 


128         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

associates  found  their  managerial  occupation  gone.^  And 
now  Rich  —  if  we  may  beHeve  Cibber  —  felt  free  to  in- 
dulge in  his  favorite  pastime  of  trampling  upon  the  rights 
of  the  players.  Doubtless  he  was  not  an  easy  master; 
doubtless,  too,  the  deposed  actor-managers,  having 
tasted  of  power  and  found  it  good,  and  knowing  also  their 
strength  with  the  Lord  Chamberlain,  were  not  slow  to 
take  offense.  The  immediate  cause  of  the  events  that 
followed  is  not  far  to  seek.  Salaries  were  again  reduced, 
and  Rich  tried  to  compel  the  players,  young  and  old,  to 
give  up  to  the  management  one-third  of  their  benefit 
profits. 2  Cibber  and  his  friends  refused  absolutely  to  be 
mulcted  in  this  new  fashion,  and  went  straight  to  the 
Lord  Chamberlain.  That  official  sustained  their  protest 
and  forbade  the  innovation.  For  once  Christopher  Rich, 
shrewd  as  he  was,  overrated  his  power,  and  chose  to 
ignore  the  order.  Then,  on  June  6,  1709,  came  like  a 
thunderclap  another  order  from  the  Lord  Chamberlain. 
This  mandate  "silenced"  Drury  Lane  until  further 
notice,  —  and  it  was  obeyed. 

The  silencing  of  Drury  Lane  was  the  signal  for  the  es- 
tablishment of  the  new  regime.  The  moves  leading 
thereto  were  complicated  and  shifty,  and  only  their  gen- 
eral trend  can  be  indicated  here.  Rich  defended  himself 
to  the  last  ditch.  Moreover,  he  cited  some  figures  which 
suggest  that  the  players  were  not  quite  so  harshly  treated 
as  Cibber  represents,  while  a  number  of  his  fellow  pro- 
prietors, as  well  as  many  actors  not  of  the  insurgent  party, 
vainly  petitioned  the  Queen  for  relief  against  what  they 
described  as  a  conspiracy  against  them.  But  even  before 
the  silencing  order  came,  the  Lord  Chamberlain  had 
sanctioned  certain  negotiations  which  indicate  that  he 

1  Apology,  Chapters  X-XII;  Fitzgerald,  I,  262-266. 

'  Deductions  of  1/4  to  1/2  of  the  benefit  profits  had  sometimes  been 
made  in  the  case  of  subordinate  players,  whose  wages  ranged  from  50J.  to  £4 
a  week,  but  never  in  the  case  of  major  players. 


THE  MANAGERS  129 

had  lost  patience  with  Rich,  and  was  ready  to  recognize 
the  revolutionary  party.  Cibber,  Wilks,  and  Dogget, 
with  Mrs.  Oldfield  to  help  them,  agreed  to  head  a  new 
company,  the  men  as  joint  sharers,  while  Mrs.  Oldfield 
was  allowed  to  name  her  own  salary;  and  Swiney,  their 
old  employer  at  the  Haymarket,  was  persuaded  to  let 
them  occupy  that  house  —  for  valuable  consideration. ^ 
Here  then,  with  Swiney  as  joint-manager,  the  new  com^ 
pany  played,  successfully  and  without  competition^,  >/ 
I'rom  September  i£^_27QQ»  ^^  ^^^^  '""^  November.  —  when 
DruryLaHe  echoed  and  re-echoed  once  more,  first  wilh— 
"the  shouts  and^umpets  of  battle,  and  then  with  the  ■ 
voice  of  the  comedians  and  the  plaudits  of  the  multitiide. 
For  a  striking  event  had  come  to  pass  at  old  Drury, 
second  in  interest  only  to  a  dramatic  episode  of  the  year 
1598,  when  the  embattled  Burbage  forces  had  borne  off 
the  timbers  of  The  Theatre  and  set  them  up  again  on  the 
Bankside,  where  they  served  as  the  framework  of  the 
Globe.  The  Burbage  forces  on  that  occasion  had  carried 
all  the  "swordes,  daggers,  billes,  [and]  axes "  they  pos- 
sessed, and  it  was  well  for  them  that  they  did,  for  their 
puritanical  landlord's  henchmen  also  had  a  full  comple- 
ment of  bludgeons,  and  the  landlord  himself  had  fully 
intended  to  make  a  more  godly  use  of  the  timbers.^  The 
accoutrements  of  battle  were  very  much  in  evidence  also 
at  Drury  Lane,  a  hundred  and  eleven  years  later,  though 
then  there  was  no  principle  at  stake,  but  only  profit. 

A  certain  Mr.  William  Collier,  M.P.,  who  had  some 
doubtful  pretensions  to  a  share  in  the  Drury  Lane  patent, 
and  some  very  strong  friends  at  court,  obtained  the  royal 
license  to  reopen  that  house,  and  reopen  it  he  did,  with 
the  remnants  of  Rich's  long-silenced  troop,  after  taking 
possession  by  means  of  "a  sufficient  Number  of  Forces," 

1  Apology,  II,  66-72,  78  fF.  (notes);  Fitzgerald,  I,  266  fF. 
*  Wallace,  First  London  Theatre,  pp.  29,  278;  Halliwell-Phillipps,  Outlines, 
I,  360. 


I30         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

writes  Cibber,  "whether  lawless  or  lawful  I  forget." 
Rich,  who  did  not  forget,  declared  that  it  was  done  with 
the  aid  of  an  armed  mob,  and  Collier,  secure  in  his  court 
favor,  half  admitted  the  soft  impeachment. ^  This 
forcible  entry  took  place  on  November  22,  1709.  The 
99th  number  of  the  Tatler  gives  us  to  understand  that 
Rich  effected  a  retreat  with  most  of  his  properties  before 
it  was  too  late:  "The  Refuse  of  Divito's  Followers 
marched  off  the  Night  before,  disguised  in  Magnificence; 
Door-Keepers  came  out  clad  like  Cardinals,  and  Scene- 
Drawers  like  Heathen  Gods.  Divito  himself,"  that  is, 
Rich  in  propria  persona^  "was  wrapped  up  in  one  of  his 
black  Clouds,  and  left  to  the  Enemy  nothing  but  an 
empty  Stage,  full  of  Trap-Doors  known  only  to  himself  and 
his  Adherents."  However  that  may  have  been,  Drury 
Lane  was  opened  again  on  November  23,  and  Collier's 
company  won  some  temporary  favor  during  the  next  few 
months;  but  it  rose  in  rebellion  against  his  deputy  man- 
ager, and  "had  made  but  an  indifferent  Campaign"  by 
the  end  of  the  Season. ^  The  Haymarket  company,  mean- 
while, had  to  bear  the  deficits  of  the  opera,  and  to  remain 
idle  some  nights  each  week  while  the  opera  was  playing. 
Collier,  who  was  not  pleased  with  the  way  things  were 
going,  now  made  two  further  moves.  First,  in  the  season 
of  1710-11,  he  and  the  Lord  Chamberlain  persuaded 
Cibber  and  his  colleagues  at  the  Haymarket  to  take  over 
Drury  Lane  with  its  players  and  equipment,  and  to  give 
him  in  exchange  the  sole  ownership  and  control  of  the 
opera  at  the  Haymarket,  plus  a  subsidy  of  £200  a  year 
and  a  free  field  on  Wednesday  of  each  week,  —  the  opera 
alone  to  entertain  the  town  that  night.  Even  so,  the  new 
Drury  Lane  managers  profited  by  the  change,  and  their 

^  Apology,  II,  92.  The  whole  procedure  was  officially  investigated.  The 
documents  appear  in  British  Museum  Addl.  MS.  20,  726,  and  there  are  ex- 
tracts in  Fitzgerald,  I,  275  fF. 

*  Apology y  II,  loi;  Fitzgerald,  I,  308  ff. 


THE  MANAGERS  131 

chief  reports  that  "the  Swarm  of  Audiences"  drawn  by 
their  "Industry  and  good  Menagement"  exceeded  "all 
that  had  been  seen  in  thirty  years  before."  The  opera, 
however,  continued  to  languish,  and  so,  before  the  be- 
ginning of  the  next  season,  Collier  moved  once  more. 
This  time  he  obtained  a  new  hcense  which  made  him  a 
joint-manager  of  Drury  Lane,  along  with  Cibber,  Wilks, 
and  Dogget,  and  he  forced  the  opera  back  upon  Swineyi 
at  the  Haymarket,  —  who  took  it  unwillingly  and  :aas- 
soon  so  deep  in  deb^Jhat  he  had  to  flee  the.,iLQuntry... 
i^TTDrury  Lane  Collier  left  the  business  of  management 
entirely  with  his  three  partners,  insisting  only  on  a  flat 
allowance  of  £700  a  year  in  lieu  of  his  one-fourth  interest. 
That  interest,  as  it  happened,  would  have  paid  him 
£1,000  a  year,  according  to  Cibber's  reckoning,  for  the 
new  managers  prospered  mightily.^ 

In  1 714  Collier's  privileges  came  to  an  end,  for  his 
license  (he  held  no  patent)  lapsed  on  the  death  of  Queen 
Anne;  and  his  partners,  who  were  sole  owners  of  the 
movable  theatrical  property,  had  recourse  to  Sir  Richard 
Steele,  who  was  in  high  favor  at  court.  They  "knew  the 
Obligations  the  Stage  had  to  his  Writings,"  and  Cibber 
gratefully  acknowledges  that  there  was  scarce  a  comedian 
of  merit  in  the  company  "whom  his  Tatlers  had  not  made 
better  by  his  publick  Recommendation  of  them."  Steele 
bestirred  himself  vigorously.  With  the  Duke  of  Marl- 
borough for  his  advocate,  he  procured  a  royal  license  for 
himself  and  four  others,  —  Wilks,  Cibber,  Dogget,  and 
Booth,  —  on  October  18,  1714,  and,  in  the  following 
January,  a  new  patent  for  his  life  and  three  years  after. 
The  patent  ran  to  Steele  personally,  but  he  promptly 
assigned  equal  shares  to  Wilks,  Cibber,  and  Booth,  ac- 
cepting a  quarter  of  the  profits  in  lieu  of  the  "pension  "  of 

^  Apology,  II,  loi  ff.;  Fitzgerald,  I,  314.  The  Drury  Lane  establishment 
numbered  140  actors  and  employees  by  1728,  and  steadily  paid  handsome 
dividends  {Apology,  II,  203). 


132         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

£700  which  Collier  had  enjoyed.  About  1728,  however, 
Steele  was  forced  to  assign  his  share.  A  subsequent  suit 
between  him  and  his  partners  brought  out  the  fact  that 
for  three  years  past  he  had  taken  no  active  interest  in 
the  theatre,  and  his  partners  were  judicially  upheld  in 
allowing  themselves  additional  compensation  for  their 
managerial  labors.^ 

It  should  be  noted  in  passing  that  Steele's  partners 
were  not  the  same  three  —  Gibber,  Wilks,  and  Dogget  — 
who  had  started  with  Swiney,  in  1709.  Barton  Booth  had 
been  added  and  Dogget  had  dropped  out.  By  17 13 
Booth  had  won  fame  in  Cato^  and  fortune  followed,  for 
Bolingbroke's  patronage  brought  him  an  equal  place 
in  the  association.  Dogget  resented  this  intrusion  so 
strongly  that  he  quit  both  the  stage  and  the  management 
at  once,  nor  would  he  accept  a  settlement  of  a  half-share 
as  a  retiring  allowance.  In  the  litigation  which  followed 
two  years  after,  Colley  Gibber  —  like  John  Hemings  of 
old  —  proved  a  tower  of  strength  to  his  company,  and 
Dogget  was  awarded  a  judgment  of  only  £600  with  in- 
terest. No  wonder,  though,  that  he  would  not  speak  to 
his  old  colleagues  for  a  long  time  after!  ^ 

The  Gibber-Wilks-Booth  management  at  Drury  Lane 
earned  such  substantial  profits  that  it  hardly  could  ex- 
pect to  escape  competition.  A  rival  appeared,  in  fact, 
about  a  year  after  Booth  had  joined  the  management. 
On  December  18,  1714,  the  theatre  in  Lincoln's  Inn 
Fields,  "rebuilt  from  the  ground,"  was  opened  by  John 
Rich,  son  of  the  "arch-plotter"  Ghristopher,  whose  old 
patent  was  then  freed  from  the  ban  of  silence,  but  not 
before  Ghristopher  Rich  had  sunk  into  the  silence  of  the 
grave.  His  son  was  an  actor  of  some  ability,  and  an  un- 
doubted master  of  the  art  which  he  made  peculiarly  his 

^  Apology,  II,  109,  161  fF.,  173-175,  193-208,  and  notes;  Steele,  The 
Theatre,  No   8  (ed.  1 791,  pp.  61-71). 
2  Apology,  II,  140-158. 


THE  MANAGERS  133 

own,  —  the  contriving  of  pantomimes.^  Christopher 
Rich's  old  partners  in  the  patent,  though  they  protested 
vigorously  against  the  silencing  of  their  house  in  1709, 
had  dropped  out  of  sight  in  the  interim,  and  John  Rich 
remained  in  undisputed  possession. ^  As  manager  of  the 
new  company  he  proved  singularly  successful,  and  for  a 
period  of  almost  fifty  years  —  at  Lincoln's  Inn  Fields 
until  1732,  and  thereafter  at  Covent  Garden,  until  his 
death  in  1761  — his  shrewdness  and  sense  of  values  kept 
the  powers  at  Drury  Lane  quite  cognizant  of  the  fact  that 
they  had  a  wide-awake  competitor.  One  instance  of  his 
alertness  has  already  been  referred  to  —  his  acceptance 
of  a  certain  piece  which  had  previously  been  rejected  by 
Gibber.  The  Beggar  s  Opera  justly  made  "Gay  rich,  and 
Rich  gay,"  ^  But  Covent  Garden,  the  scene  of  Rich's 
greatest  triumphs,  fell  upon  evil  days  after  his  death. 
His  son-in-law,  the  actor  John  Beard,  was  the  first  to  take 
over  its  management,  and  in  his  time  the  theatre  held  its 
own  fairly  well,  though  it  had  its  ups  and  downs.  His 
heirs  were  able  to  sell  the  property  in  1767  for  the  great 
sum  of  £60,000.4  Unfortunately  the  four  purchasers  held 
widely  differing  views  as  to  what  constituted  the  proper 
management  of  a  playhouse;  indeed,  their  differences 
soon  proved  irreconcilable.  The  elder  Colman,  one  of  the 
four,  finally  won  sole  control,  and  held  it  in  defiance  of 
the  rest.  A  bitter  pamphlet  warfare  was  waged  against 
him,  and  the  matter  was  carried  to  the  courts,  but  Col- 
man continued  as  manager  until  1774.  Then  he  resigned, 
and  Thomas  Harris,  another  of  the  four  purchasers  of 

^  See  Gabriel  Rennel,  Reflections  .  .  .  Occasioned  by  the  Present  State 
of  the  Two  Rival  Theatres,  [1725?];  H,  S.  Wyndham,  Annals  of  Covent 
Garden  Theatre,  I,  4  ff. 

^  Apology, II,  78-79,  99-101,  165-166. 

'  See  above,  p.  61. 

*  Fitzgerald,  II,  236  ff.;  pamphlets,  for  list  see  Lowe,  Bibliographical 
Account  of  English  Theatrical  Literature,  under  Colman,  Harris,  and  Covent 
Garden. 


134         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

1767,  took  his  place  and  continued  the  management,  with 
varying  fortunes,  until  his  death  in  1820.  We  shall  meet 
him  again  shortly.  Meanwhile,  the  name  of  Colman  sug- 
gests a  word  about  the  Colman  dynasty  and  the  Little 
Theatre  in  the  Haymarket,  the  only  one  of  the  minor 
houses  of  which  our  space  permits  more  than  the  briefest 
mention. 

"The  Little  Theatre  in  the  Hay"  —  remodelled  from 
an  old  inn  at  a  cost  of  £1,000,  and  first  opened  in  the 
year  1720  ^  —  should  not  be  confused  with  Vanbrugh 
and  Betterton's  old  Haymarket  Theatre,  nor  yet  with  the 
Haymarket  Opera  House  of  later  times.  The  importance 
of  the  Little  Theatre  lies  in  the  fact  that  its  activities 
helped  to  break  down  the  monopoly  of  the  patent  houses, 
and  that  its  history  writes  large  the  story  of  four  men  of 
uncommon  calibre,  —  Fielding,  Foote,  and  the  two  Col- 
mans.  During  its  early  years  the  Little  Theatre  was 
given  over  to  miscellaneous  tricksters  and  showmen,  but 
by  1730  it  began  to  hold  up  its  head  in  the  world,  thanks 
to  Fielding.2  This  "broken  wit" — as  Colley  Cibber  de- 
scribed him  —  had  had  his  earliest  play  produced  by  that 
very  Cibber  and  his  friends  in  1728,  but  did  not  long  re- 
main in  favor  with  the  rulers  of  Drury  Lane.  Two  years 
later  he  wrote  The  Author  s  Farce  and  the  Pleasures  of  the 
Town^  the  first  of  those  "several  frank  and  free  Farces 
that  seem'd  to  knock  all  Distinctions  of  Mankind  on  the 
head;  Religion,  Laws,  Government,  Priests,  Judges  and 
Ministers,"  and  (one  is  tempted  to  add  to  Colley  Gibber's 
list)  3  poets  laureate  and  patentees!  With  this  Fielding 
transferred  his  allegiance  to  the  Little  Theatre  in  the 
Hay.  In  1730  and  1731  his  Author  s  Farce ^  Tom  Thumbs 
The  Welsh  Opera,  and  other  pieces  scored  palpable  hits 

*  Fitzgerald,  II,  98;  Cross,  Fielding,  I,  79, 

*  See  Cross,  Fielding,  I,  Chapters  iv-vi,  viii. 

'  Apology,  I,  287;  cf.  Cross,  Fielding,  I,  61.  Fielding's  comedy  The 
Temple  Beau  was  played  at  Goodman's  Fields  Theatre  in  1730,  but  that 
house  was  promptly  closed  by  the  authorities.   Cross,  I,  76-78. 


THE  MANAGERS  135 

there,  but  brought  down  the  wrath  of  the  authorities 
upon  him  and  the  actors,  so  that  by  the  end  of  173 1  the 
house  had  to  be  resigned  once  more  to  tumblers  and 
variety  performers.  For  a  time  Fielding  made  his  peace 
with  Drury  Lane,  and  in  1732  and  1733  half-a-dozen  or 
more  of  his  farces  were  played  there.  It  will  appear  in  a 
moment  that  meanwhile  another  revolution  had  begun  at 
Drury  Lane.  Cibber  no  longer  ruled  there  in  1734,  but 
one  can  understand  his  resentment  at  seeing  himself 
ridiculed  on  its  boards,  as  he  was  in  the  Fielding  revivals 
of  that  year.i  Two  years  later,  however,  it  was  Fielding's 
turn  to  be  resentful,  for  his  Pasquin  was  flatly  rejected  by 
both  the  patent  houses.  Nothing  daunted  by  this  rebuff, 
Fielding  got  together  some  of  the  younger  Drury  Lane 
players,  formed  his  own  Great  Mogul's  Company,  and 
triumphantly  produced  Pasquin  at  the  Haymarket.  The 
piece  won  the  greatest  success  on  record  since  the  first 
run  of  The  Beggar  s  Opera,  and,  together  with  several 
other  new  productions  from  the  pen  of  Fielding,  —  not  to 
speak  of  Lillo's  tragedy  of  Fatal  Curiosity , —  made  Field- 
ing's first  year  as  a  manager  a  year  of  marked  success.-  But 
his  success  was  short-lived,  for  his  consistently  brilliant 
satire  of  the  government  —  and  particularly  of  Sir  Robert 
Walpole  —  brought  the  powers  down  upon  him  once 
more,  this  time  with  crushing  effect.  In  1737  the  Licens- 
ing Bill  was  passed,  in  spite  of  Lord  Chesterfield's  strong 
protest,  —  and  thereby  Fielding  and  one  or  two  other 
small  managers  who  had  attempted  to  operate  without 
patents,  were  definitely  put  out  of  business. 

Professor  Cross  looks  upon  this  event  as  one  of  tragic 
import  for  the  future  of  the  theatre.  But  for  the  Licens- 
ing Act,  Fielding,  he  thinks,  would  have  "enlarged  his 
theatre  and  continued  to  delight  London  audiences  for 
another  decade  or  more.  On  Fielding's  stage  .  .  .  Gar- 
rick  would  have  won  his  spurs.    Fielding  and  Garrick, 

'  Cross,  I,  149  fF.  2  Cross,  I,  197-204. 


136         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

working  together,  would  have  given  the  British  theatre  a 
fame  unequalled  since  the  days  of  Shakespeare."^  One 
wonders  a  little,  perhaps,  whether  two  such  men  as  Field- 
ing and  Garrick  could  have  worked  together  satisfac- 
torily! Be  that  as  it  may,  the  little  Haymarket  won  still 
further  triumphs  after  Fielding  had  turned  from  the  stage 
to  the  bar  and  to  the  writing  of  the  great  non-dramatic 
comedies  for  which  he  is  best  known.  In  1747,  ten  years 
after  Fielding's  exit,  Samuel  Foote  made  his  bow  at  the 
Haymarket  in  the  double  character  of  author  and  per- 
former, and  when  the  magistrates  attempted  to  stop  him, 
he  delighted  his  friends  and  the  town  in  general  all  the 
more,  —  ostensibly  by  giving  them  a  dish  of  chocolate 
or  a  dish  of  tea,^  though  the  real  dishes  he  served  were  so 
well  spiced  that  his  enemies  might  well  rage  thereat.  To 
follow  his  career  in  detail  here  would  lead  us  too  far  afield. 
Suffice  it  to  say  that  Foote  scored  and  scored  yet  again 
upon  many  stages  —  at  Drury  Lane  and  Covent  Garden, 
in  Scotland,  Ireland,  and  France  —  and  that  he  was  back 
at  the  Haymarket  in  1760  and  1762.  Four  years  later  a 
fashionable  company,  of  which  the  Duke  of  York  was 
one,  played  upon  his  vanity  and  dared  him  to  ride  a 
high-spirited  horse.  He  was  thrown,  and  lost  a  leg  in 
consequence,  but  through  the  Duke's  influence  he  was 
compensated  for  this  misfortune  by  the  gift  of  a  patent 
which  allowed  him  to  play  each  year  from  the  middle  of 
May  to  the  middle  of  September.  In  1767,  therefore, 
Foote  reopened  the  Little  Haymarket  with  all  the  pomp 
and  circumstance  warranted  by  official  favor  and  the 
"prodigious  improvements"  he  had  made  in  the  house.' 
Here  then,  during  the  next  year,  he  made  a  small  fortune 
out  of  his  Devil  upon  Two  Sticks^  and  here  his  brilliant  but 
thoroughly  unscrupulous  wit  and  his  unrivalled  mimicry 

^  I,  235.  2  See  below,  pp.  1 48-1 49. 

3  Cooke,  Memoirs  of  Samuel  Foote,  1805,  I,  47  fF.,  139  ff.,  233;  Genest,  V, 
113,  137 ff- 


THE  MANAGERS  137 

continued  to  win  him  unmeasured  applause,  but  also 
cordial  execration.  But  Foote  was  so  reckless  a  gambler 
and  spendthrift  that  he  lost  fortunes  rather  faster  than 
he  could  earn  them.  In  1777,  finally,  he  was  glad  to  retire, 
having  sold  his  patent  to  the  elder  Colman  for  an  annuity 
of  £1,600.^ 

As  it  turned  out,  the  new  manager  had  to  pay  but  half 
a  year's  instalment  of  this  annuity,  —  and  the  early  death 
of  Foote  was  but  one  of  many  circumstances  which  made 
Colman's  regime  at  the  Haymarket  far  more  fortunate 
and  profitable  than  his  Covent  Garden  experience  had 
been.  Henderson,  Edwin,  and  other  new  actors  got  their 
first  real  hearing  in  his  theatre  and  contributed  largely  to 
his  success.  So,  too,  did  a  long  series  of  well-written  plays, 
his  own  work  and  that  of  his  son.  During  the  greater 
part  of  his  career,  George  Colman  the  Younger  —  author 
of  John  Bull  and  of  many  a  play  and  ballad  besides  — 
was,  as  his  father  said,  a  true  chip  of  the  old  block.  For 
a  number  of  years  after  1789,  when  his  father  was  in- 
capacitated and  the  management  fell  into  his  hands,  his 
plays  and  his  administration  went  on  prosperously.  In 
the  end,  however,  extravagance  and  recklessness  proved 
his  undoing.  He  was  compelled  to  part  with  his  play- 
house, and  he  finished  his  course  as  a  rather  unsatisfac- 
tory examiner  of  plays  for  the  government. ^ 

During  all  these  years  time  had  not  stood  still  at  Drury 
Lane.  Indeed,  as  death  or  old  age  forced  Gibber  and  his 
colleagues  one  by  one  to  lay  down  their  management, 
there  ensued  a  period  of  transition  no  less  troubled,  cer- 
tainly, than  that  which  followed  the  passing  of  Rich  at 
Covent  Garden.  The  first  step  in  this  direction  was  the 
retirement  of  Booth,  which  was  forced  upon  him  by  a 
severe  illness,  in  1728.   He  died  in  1733,  shortly  after  he 

1  Oulton,  I,  57-58. 

*  Introduction,  Humorous  Works  of  Colman  the  Younger,  ed.  G.  B.  Brick- 
stone;  Peake,  Memoirs  oj  the  Colman  Family,  II,  429  ff. 


138  SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

had  sold  half  of  his  share  in  the  patent  to  one  John  High- 
more,  a  well-intentioned  but  ill-informed  amateur. 
Meanwhile  the  remaining  managers  had  lost  Mrs.  Old- 
field  and  Mrs.  Porter,  their  two  leading  actresses,  and 
Drury  Lane's  misfortunes  reached  a  climax  with  the 
death  of  Wilks  in  1731.^  What  followed  is  sketched 
vigorously  in  one  of  the  theatrical  tracts  of  the  time: 

After  the  Death  of  Mr.  Wilks,  Co-Monarch  of  Drury-Lane 
Theatre,  there  arose  an  universal  Discontent  among  the  great 
Men  of  the  Empire  of  Drury;  our  Laureat  forseeing  nothing 
but  War  and  Bloodshed,  wisely  slip'd  his  Neck  out  of  the  Col- 
lar, sold  out  his  Share,  pocketed  the  Pence,  and  left  'em  to 
fight  it  out  among  themselves.  Thus  divided,  Ancient  Pistol 
heads  the  Malecontents,  and  leads  his  Troops  cross  the  Plains 
of  Covent-Garden,  over  the  Fields  of  Leicester,  and  at  last 
encamps  himself  in  the  Haymarket,^  where  he  gives  defiance 
to  the  Patentees,  who  keep  in  their  intrenchments  and  defend 
themselves  with  equal  Bravery.^ 

An  explanatory  note  or  two  will  makes  these  events  stand 
out  more  clearly. 

The  sale  of  Booth's  half-share  and  the  death  of  Wilks 
brought  two  new  men  into  the  management,  —  High- 
more,  already  mentioned,  and  one  John  EUys,  a  painter, 
who  represented  the  interests  of  Mrs.  Wilks.  Mrs. 
Booth,  finally,  sold  her  remaining  half-share  to  Henry 
Giffard,  manager  of  Goodman's  Fields  Theatre,  —  an  un- 
Hcensed  house,  which,  like  the  Little  Theatre  in  the  Hay, 
was  not  often  or  long  permitted  to  do  business  in  peace, 
though  when  it  was  so  permitted,  it  occasionally  brought 
forward  players  and  playwrights  who  made  their  mark. 
Colley  Cibber  did  not  choose,  at  his  time  of  life,  to  start 
anew.  He  therefore  appointed  his  son  Theophilus  ("An- 
cient Pistol,"  for  Theophilus  is  said  to  have  been  one  of 
the  greatest  Pistols  of  them  all)  to  serve  as  his  deputy. 

^  Apology,  11,  254.  "^  In  the  Little  Theatre  in  the  Hay. 

'  Do  You  Know  What  You  are  About?  (1733),  pp.  6-7. 


THE  MANAGERS  139 

So  far  his  action  was  unexceptionable,  —  which  is  more 
than  can  be  said  for  what  followed.  Theophilus  had  been 
given  to  understand  that  he  should  be  the  heir  to  his 
father's  theatrical  empire,  but  in  1733  (the  first  season  of 
the  Decline  and  Fall)  Colley  sold  his  share  of  the  patent  to 
Highmore  for  3,000  guineas,  —  this,  too,  at  a  moment 
when  the  exertions  of  the  younger  Gibber  had  brought 
good  houses  and  led  Highmore  to  expect  still  better 
profits.  This  transaction  left  Theophilus  a  prince  without 
a  throne,  but  not  without  hopes  of  carving  out  his  own 
fortune,  as  his  father  had  done  before  him.  Under  the 
circumstances,  one  finds  it  easier  to  forgive  him  for  lead- 
ing a  secession  of  Highmore's  best  actors  to  the  Little 
Haymarket  than  to  justify  his  father's  action  in  support- 
ing it  by  an  appeal  to  the  Lord  Ghamberlain  in  favor  of 
the  seceders.  Victor  and  Davies,  Gibber's  contempora- 
ries, vouch  for  this  attempt  of  his  to  eat  his  cake  and 
let  his  son  have  it  too,  —  a  scheme  which  had  serious 
consequences  for  Highmore,  though  the  conspirators  did 
not  get  the  new  patent  they  desired.  Theophilus  and  his 
company  were  licensed  as  the  Gompany  of  the  Revels, 
and  the  courts  refused  to  heed  the  petition  of  Highmore, 
—  who  was  joined  on  this  occasion  by  Rich  and  the  re- 
maining patentees  of  both  major  houses,  —  that  the  new 
company  be  silenced  as  interlopers  against  the  patents. 
Indeed,  the  Haymarket  players  won  the  chief  contention 
of  their  counter-suit,  —  that  Highmore  be  ordered  to  re- 
linquish Drury  Lane  to  them,  in  accordance  with  a  lease 
which  he  had  given  before  their  secession.^ 

After  these  disturbances  came  an  attempt  at  negotia- 
tion. The  seceders  returned  to  Drury  Lane,  and  High- 
more  made  concessions  in  salaries  and  otherwise.  Then, 
having  lost  heavily  for  months,  he  was  glad  to  sell  his 

1  Victor,  I,  14-15;  T.  Cibber,  Two  Dissertations,  pp.  18-20;  Davies,  Life 
of  Garrick,  I,  76;  Fitzgerald,  II,  72  fF.;  Lowe,  Supplementary  Chapter  to 
Gibber's  Apology. 


I40         SHx^KSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

holding — at  a  loss  of  50  per  cent  —  to  Charles  Fleet- 
wood, another  amiable  but  improvident  amateur,  who 
also  bought  Mrs.  Wilks's  share,  and  thus  became  the 
chief  owner.  Fleetwood  managed  to  keep  his  head  above 
water  for  a  time,  partly  by  the  aid  of  Theophilus  Cibber, 
Macklin,  and  James  Quin,  who  served  successively  as  his 
deputy  managers,  and  partly  by  virtue  of  the  drawing 
power  of  the  two  actors  last  named,  who  became  prime 
favorites  at  Drury  Lane  with  the  passing  of  the  older 
generation.  But  there  were  new  portents  abroad.  First 
among  these  was  the  competition  of  the  non-patent 
houses,  Goodman's  Fields  and  the  Little  Theatre  in  the 
Hay.  The  Licensing  Act  of  1737  suppressed  these  houses, 
yet  it  brought  but  cold  comfort  to  the  patent  theatres 
for  it  added  still  further  to  the  great  power  already  held 
by  the  Lord  Chamberlain,  and  authorized  him  to  license 
new  houses  at  his  own  discretion.  The  non-patent 
houses,  indeed,  did  not  stay  closed  very  long.  In  1741 
a  new  light  appeared  on  the  horizon,  and  David  Garrick 
made  his  triumphant  entry  into  London  and  fame  on  the 
stage  of  Goodman's  Fields. 

Thereafter  history  once  more  repeated  itself,  and  the 
discredited  and  more  or  less  bankrupt  Fleetwood  was 
superseded  before  very  long  by  an  actor-manager  who 
was  perhaps  the  greatest  of  them  all.  Fleetwood's  for- 
tunes had  been  sinking  fast  for  some  years  before  Garrick 
came  to  London.  For  a  while  he  contrived  to  stave  off 
difficulties  by  borrowing,  but  this  was  merely  to  tem- 
porize, and  not  even  the  acting  of  Garrick  —  who  joined 
the  Drury  Lane  forces  in  1742  —  could  fill  Fleetwood's 
treasury  fast  enough  to  pay  his  gambling  debts  and 
countervail  his  general  improvidence.  Salaries  were  con- 
stantly in  arrears,  and  discipline  went  by  the  board.  As 
early  as  1743  the  players,  under  the  leadership  of  Garrick 
and  Macklin,  planned  a  revolt,  but  this  came  to  nothing, 
for  the  Lord  Chamberlain  stood  by  the  patentee  and 


OBoheif  19th,  \*i^Xk 
G  O  O  D  M  A  N's    FIELDS. 

AT  the  late  Theatre  in  Goodman's- 
fields  this  day  will  be  performed  a 
Cojicen  of  Vocal  and  Inllrumental  Muiic, 
divided  into  two  parts. 

Tickets  at  three,  tvro,   and  one  fhilliijg. 

Places  for  the  Boxes  to  be  taken  at  the 
Fleece  Tavern,    near  the  Theatre. 

N,  B.  Between  the  t.vo  parts  of  the  Con- 
cert will  be  prefented  an  Hiilorical  Play 
called  the  Life  and  Death  of 

King  RICHARD  the  THIRD. 

Containiug  the  DlftrefTes  of  King  Henry  VI. 

The  artful  acquifnion  of  the  Crown  by 
King  Richard. 

The  murder  of  young  King  Edward  V..and 
his  brother,  in  the  Tower. 
The  landing  of  the  Earl  of  Richmond  ; 
And  the  death  of  King  Richard  in  the  me- 
morable battle  of  Bofworth  Field,  being  the 
lafl  that  was  fought  between  the  Houles  of 
York  and  Lancafter. 

With  many  other  true  hiilorical  pafTages. 
The  part  of  King  Richard  by  a  Gentleman 
(W\io  never  appeared  on  any  Stage) 
King  Henry  by  Mr.  Giflard  ;  Richmond, 
Mr.  Marfhall ;  Prince  Edward  by  I\?ifs  Hip- 
pifley ;  Duke  of  York,  Mifs  Naylor  ;  Duke 
of  Buckingham,  Mr.  Peterfon;  Duke  of 
Norfolk,  Mr.  Blakes ;  Lord  Stanley,  Mr. 
Pagett;  Oxford,  Mr.  Vaughanj  Treflel, 
Mr.  W.  Gitiard  ;  Catefbv,  Mr.  Marr  ;  Rat- 
cliff,  Mr.  Crofts;  BJunt,  Mr.  Naylor; 
Tyrrell,  Mr.  Puttcnham  ;  Lord  Mayor,  Mr. 
Dunftali ;  the  Queen,  Mrs.  Steel  -,  Duchefa 
of  York,  Mrs.  Yates ; 

And  the  part  of  Lady  ANNE 
By  Mrs.  GIFFARD. 

With  Entertainments  of  Dancing 

By  Monf.  Fromet,  Madam  Duvall  and  the 

two  Mailers  and  Mifs  Granier. 

To  which  will  be  added  a  Ballad  Opera  of 
one  att,  called 

The  VIRGIN  UNMASK'D. 
The  part  of  Lucy  by  Mifs  Hippifley. 
Both  of  which  will  be  performed  gratis  by 
perfona  for  their  diverlion. 


THE  MANAGERS  141 

Garrick  and  Macklin  fell  out.  Within  the  next  two  years 
Fleetwood  had  borrowed  £10,000  on  his  patent  and 
furnishings,  and  found  himself  totally  unable  to  meet  his 
obligations.'  The  patent  was  advertised  for  sale;  Fleet- 
wood gladly  resigned  all  his  rights  in  return  for  an  an- 
nuity of  five  or  six  hundred  pounds;  and  from  1745  to 
1747  Drury  Lane  was  managed  for  its  mortgagees  by 
James  Lacy,  a  one-time  actor  under  Fielding  at  the  Little 
Haymarket,  and  latterly  Rich's  assistant  at  Covent 
Garden. 2  Lacy  had  influence  at  court;  more  than  that,  he 
had  the  good  sense  to  realize  that  with  Garrick  beside 
him  the  theatre  could  be  brought  out  of  the  bankruptcy 
court.  In  1747  the  two  men  came  to  an  agreement,  won 
over  the  Lord  Chamberlain,  assumed  the  heavy  debts  of 
the  old  management,  and  then,  after  enlarging  and  ren- 
ovating the  playhouse,  proceeded  to  business.^  I  have 
already  dealt  with  various  aspects  of  the  long  and  success- 
ful management  of  Garrick  and  Lacy,  and  I  shall  touch 
upon  others  later.  Garrick's  many-sided  activities  have 
been  made  the  subject  of  many  a  book,  and  it  would  be 
impossible  to  summarize  them  adequately  here,  even  if  it 
were  necessary.  One  thing  is  certain,  —  that  he  was  not 
only  a  great  actor  but  also  a  decidedly  able  manager. 
Colley  Gibber,  one  feels,  was  probably  thinking  too  much 
of  his  own  well-lined  pockets  when  he  decided  that  his 
own  time  was  the  golden  age  of  the  theatre.  Garrick 
prospered  far  beyond  the  dreams  of  the  good  Colley,  and 
Gibber's  phrase  is  more  justly  descriptive  of  the  days  of 
Garrick's  acting  and  management,  perhaps,  than  of  any 
period  since  the  Elizabethans,  —  and  that,  too,  in  spite 
of  the  dearth  of  new  dramas  of  real  merit.  Garrick's 
own  plays  did  not  contribute  to  his  fame,  and  in  this  one 

1  Victor  I,  6;i  fF.;  Genest,  IV,  152-154;  Fitzgerald,  II,  143  ff. 

2  Genest,  IV,  153;  Cross,  I,  233. 

'  They  assumed  mortgages  of  £12,000  and  annuities  totalling  £800.  The 
agreement  is  printed  by  Fitzgerald,  II,  150  fF.   Cf.  Victor,  I,  62-87. 


142         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

point  at  least,  Sheridan,  his  successor  in  the  management 
of  old  Drury,  clearly  excelled  him.^  As  manager,  un- 
fortunately, Sheridan  was  immeasurably  his  inferior.  Of 
Sheridan,  too,  we  shall  hear  more  later.  With  him  our 
chronological  survey  comes  to  an  end,  but  one  or  two 
general  considerations  require  attention  before  we  leave 
the  managers. 

CCertain  difficulties  which  they  had  to  face  —  over  and 
above  those  already  mentioned  —  deserve  a  sympathetic 
glance  from  playgoers  of  a  later  age.  Our  predecessors 
may  well  have  taken  these  matters  to  heart;  for  one  of 
the  difficulties  of  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  cen- 
turies was  that  all  too  frequently  there  were  no  plays  to 
see,  even  though  both  supply  and  demand  were  in  evi- 
tience.  Several  causes  combined  to  put  the  managers  out 
of  pocket  in  this-way  fromtime-to  time,-  and  playgoers  out 
of  patience.  In  the  first  place,  the  Plague  • —  the  greatest 
enemy  of  the  theatre  in  Shakspere's  time,  with  the  pos- 
sible exception  of  the  Puritans  —  did  not  disappear  with 
the  closing  of  the  theatres  in  1642.2  Beginning  with  June 
5,  1665,  both  houses  were  closed  for  almost  a  year  and  a 
half  by  order  of  the  Lord  Chamberlain  on  account  of  the 
Plague  and  the  Great  Fire.^  A  hundred  years  later,  the 
Plague  had  gone,  but  the  theatres  suffered  occasionally 
from  the  visitations  of  the  influenza,*  though  that  scourge 
appears  to  have  been  less  deadly  then  than  now.  While 
the  Plague  raged,  writes  Defoe, 

All  the  Plays  and  Interludes,  which  after  the  Manner  of  the 
French  Court,  had  been  set  up,  and  began  to  encrease  among 
us,  were  forbid  to  Act;  the  gaming  Tables,  publick  danc- 

'  ^  Fitzgerald,  II,  31^-317.  Sheridan  bought  the  patent  for  £80,000,  Gar- 
rick's  holding  in  1776,  and  Lacy's  in  1778. 

2  Murray,  II,  1 71-179. 

'  Downes,  Roscius  Anglicanus,  p.  16. 

*  Genest,  X,  459-460;  Theophilus  Gibber,  Leder  to  John  Highmore, 
1733;  Autobiography  of  Mrs.  Delany,  V,  174,  177,  178,  188. 


THE  MANAGERS  143 

ing  Rooms,  and  Music  Houses  which  multiply'd,  and  began 
to  debauch  the  Manners  of  the  People,  were  shut  up  and 
suppress'd;  and  the  Jack-puddings,  Merry-andrews,  Puppet- 
shows,  Rope-dancers,  and  such  like  doings,  which  had  be- 
witch'd  the  poor  common  People,  shut  up  their  Shops,  finding 
indeed  no  Trade,  for  the  Minds  of  the  People,  were  agitated 
with  other  Things;  and  a  kind  of  Sadness  and  Horror  at  these 
Things,  sat  upon  the  Countenances,  even  of  the  common 
People;  Death  was  before  their  Eyes,  and  every  Body  began 
to  think  of  their  Graves,  not  of  Mirth  and  Diversions.^ 

Fires,  again,  had  been  a  source  of  trouble  in  Shakspere's 
time;  the  Globe  was  burned  down  in  1613  and  the  For- 
tune in  1 621.  These  inflictions  likewise  continued.  In 
1672,  for  instance,  the  first  Drury  Lane  Theatre  was 
burned  to  the  ground,  together  with  fifty  or  sixty  houses 
adjoining,^  and  as  late  as  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury and  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  a  series  of  con- 
flagrations laid  waste  half-a-dozen  different  playhouses  in 
the  course  of  a  few  years.^  And  such  calamities  were  even 
more  serious,  both  for  the  managers  and  the  playgoing 
public,  than  might  at  first  appear.  Insurance  covered  but 
a  fraction  of  the  losses,  for  the  rates  were  ruinous;  and 
there  were  comparatively  few  theatres  to  go  to. 

Nor  could  the  managers  insure  themselves  against  still 
other  risks  which  they  felt  they  must  run  in  order  to  keep 
their  audiences  interested.  There  was  more  plain  speech 
in  some  of  the  dramas  than  the  authorities  fancied,  and 
in  such  cases  the  authorities  frequently  had  the  last  word. 
More  than  a  few  plays  had  been  suppressed  in  Shak- 
spere's time,  and  while  the  guilty  playwrights  went  to 
prison,  the  theatres  were  silenced  until  the  culprits  had 
made  their  humble  submission.  Ben  Jonson,  for  one,  was 
repeatedly  in  trouble,  and  Nashe,  Marston,  and  Chap- 

^  Journal  of  the  Plague  Year,  ist  ed.,  1722,  p.  35. 

2  J.  Q.  Adams,  Shakespearean  Playhouses,  pp.  250-251,  284;  Fitzgerald, 

I,  136-137- 

^  Hughson,  London,  VI,  611,  note. 


144         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

man  also  saw  the  inside  of  prison  walls  in  consequence  of 
indiscreet  utterances  in  their  plays. ^  Certain  playwrights 
and  players  of  Restoration  times  also  had  the  scourge  of 
greatness  laid  upon  them.  In  May,  1667,  for  example,  the 
King's  Men  were  silenced  for  ten  days,  partly,  it  appears, 
for  producing  a  play  which  attacked  the  venality  of  the 
king,  and  partly  because  one  of  the  players  ventured  to 
affront  the  author,  who  happened  to  belong  to  an  in- 
fluential family.^  In  July  of  the  same  year  there  came  an- 
other suspension,  and  this  time  both  houses  were  closed 
for  a  month  or  more.  What  the  offense  was,  does  not 
appear;  but  it  may  have  been  like  that  0^1691,  when 
both  houses  were  silenced  for  three  days  for  an  insult  to  a 
peer  of  the  realm,  or  like  the  Drury  Lane  case  of  1698, 
when  that  theatre  was  closed  by  command  for  two  or 
three  days  because  Powell,  one  of  its  players,  had  drawn 
his  sword  upon  two  gentlemen  of  the  court.^ 

Occasional  suspensions  forced  upon  the  managers  by  a 
somewhat  different  cause  may  be  illustrated  by  a  quota- 
tion from  Victor.  In  1722,  we  learn,  "a  Riot  was  com- 
mitted at  the  Theatre  in  Lincoln's  Inn  Fields,  by  a  set  of 
profligate  young  Men  of  Quality,  which  shut  up  that 
Play-house  for  eight  or  nine  days.  But  the  Legislature 
(by  the  King's  Direction)  entered  so  warmly  into  the 
Affair,  that  the  Rioters  thought  proper  to  make  the  suf- 
fering Managers  ample  Satisfaction."  ^  The  severity  and 
astonishing  frequency  of  outbreaks  of  this  sort  make  one 
of  the  most  striking  points  of  difference  between  the 
theatre  of  yesterday  and  that  of  to-day.  The  audience 
still  rules  the  ultimate  destiny  of  the  stage,  but  it  is  no 
longer  a  tyrannical  mob,  ready  to  howl  down  plays  and  to 

^  Cf.  V.  C.  Gildersleeve,  Government  Regulation  oj  the  Elizabethan  Drama, 
pp.  loi  fF.;  Henslowe's  Diary,  II,  185-186. 

^  Lowe,  Betterton,  p.  105. 

3  Fitzgerald,  II,  434;  Apology,  II,  20,  and  note. 

*  History  oJ the  Theatres,  1761, 1, 106-107.  Cf.  Three  Original  Letters  on  the 
Cause  and  Manner  oJ  the  late  Riot,  1763,  p.  38. 


i    The  PuWick  ure  re«„ectf„ily  hiformcd  that 

THE 

COVEKT-GAUDEX, 

ilili  BE  OPENED 

On  MOyDAY  veil.  Scploibei- IS.  1809, 


Willi  ihc  Tfsgclv  or 


Macbeth.     Mr.  KE3IBLE, 
Lady  Macbeth,    Mi-s.  SIDDOXS. 

Wi/h  a:f!ril!/  ncui  a/iJ  appiopriale  Sccnm/,    Dnffcs  and  Dtcora/mis-. 


liiF.  1'ROPRir.TOIlS,  Ii.-ivin--   romplct,-c!  th,-  NFW  TlU-;.'i!UL  ■.■.„U;„  Uiv,  ;«iw^;^it,^;y 
|.n.ii,tfcil,  Ix-t;  l-.'.w  !•  iiKviiiilly  (o  iral>-  l<.  lav  i'ul'li.l  tlic  al.lMiH,-  ncvffitv  ilut  roi^K-k'th^i) 

10  make  the  toJio\M'i),n  aiUanrc  on  the  prn'i-.s  ut  adiniliiun — 

1  ll.,M    I'KK'L'  HALF  rRRt.. 

BOXES,     Si-z'fi/  Shillhiss.     Tlin\-Shillii,:in,nd  SiipLihc. 

I'll'.  I'l'iir  Sliiili.'i^^s.      .A-  tilii'tl. 

The  I.OU'KH  mid  Ul'l'Eli  G.lJ.l.l'.RIES  zcill  rcmai,!  nt  tht  old  I'na;. 
(Jii  til'-  Ili!'.'  i.il.iiuiliHis  dvftniCUon  of  tiu-u-  property,  ihc  I'roj.nclors,  rmoura^cJ  b\  tlic 
rtllKiulM-.iii'-c  '■!  li'iJii' r  jwlroiiagc,  iiiCraiiily  and  cli'-vrtull\  ;i]ijiln-d  llji-m.M.hi-.>  in  tin- erci'iimi 
i\  1  ucM  Tina  !v,  li.liriious  oiilv  that,  wilhuut  filial yiiii^  ll:t  aii'!irihx--['xl  c'\  tin'  cijilire, 
it  mi  '111  alii>i>l  'hi'  I'lihli''^  improved  ace  oiniiio  lalum  aaJ  fti-,,nu-,  .nnJ  ,it  llic  vine 
,  .  ",-,,,111  ;.n  addiiioiial  oniiuiieiu  to  die  M<.-tr<.in>lis  of  tW  ilntilh  I'lnpii,-.  i  Ins, 
llu-u    iii'li    aiixHuis  Willi,    tlicy  (laiter  (Ik-di^-Iv.  .,    rh.v  h.m-  wlidlv  crfi.  it-J,  i..-i  ...liv  niiliin 

11  r    (h'lit   lii'ioc-   of  Ion   monllis  fitnii  llif   l.'viui;  ol    tli.    louiilalioiis,  hut  iiiidir  tlir  fiiviiiK  iiliy 
'    ■  fivr    ili<iidvaiita;'('    of  circtiinfiaiKCs    (in:;ui.iily    iiiil!\.Miral)le    to    huiMin-  ---\\  hen   il  is 

P'^'n   tint   no   I'.ls  -^  li""    ''i:>"    >""-■  hiin.lrrd  aiid'hliv    ili.'ulaihl  )v.unds  lia,  Ikcd  <\)«ii,fd 

■   to   rciidrr   lii;-;  Thcadv  worthv  of  lintiih  Sp..  tjtor.,  and  of  llu- (i.aiiii, ,.(  di.  JMiatA- 

■  ';""'"    ,  ;„,„    in  lliis  uiidcrtal.iiij;,  tlif  iii.-vltat)K:  a.viimiil.itloii  of,  aflca:i,  a   Ih.WM  ania-r 

■'I'mIv 'lilted  to  iH-incurroa;— and  ulun,  in  addin^.i.  to  ih.-l.    pr<  If  ni;  ,iu  lanfran.-,  ■.,    i;,o 

'^  i';  ":  ,    tpidiv  onnrafitis  l-vs  of  cv.-iy  nrtuL  lujli.pniubl.   ,.,dia,„a,i.  I.  „  po  .  „  .,„„s 

"  ■  nlil.-rcil— therna..:.-torspcrliiadcll)cnilih(     tlial   in  tlR-ir  p.,.|^,>.,l    :,  .;ui.>:„.u 

•      ;  ',;  |-  ;  i  |,/,,''',,'i'  with  th..  I  ..K  u,KiK-e  ot  an  cnlyhica -d  ai.d  liberal  l>ul,lK-k. 


./</.■./.•■  11.  ly'-'"- 


n.,..!    '-'^^ 


THE  MANAGERS  145 

destroy  playhouses  at  the  bidding  of  any  faction  momen- 
tarily In  control,  or,  Indeed,  for  no  reason  at  all  except  to 
show  in  brutal  fashion  that  it  is  master.  Take,  for  ex- 
ample, the  following  notice  from  a  newspaper  of  1762: 

Thursday  night  there  was  a  great  riot  at  Covent  Garden 
Playhouse,  without  the  least  plea  or  pretense  whatever,  oc- 
casioned by  the  gentry  in  the  upper  gallery  calling  for  a  horn- 
pipe, though  nothing  of  the  sort  was  expressed  in  the  bills. 
They  went  so  far  as  to  throw  a  quart  bottle  and  two  pint 
bottles  upon  the  stage,  which  happily  did  no  mischief,  but 
might  have  been  productive  of  a  great  deal.^ 

And  this  was  pretty  late  in  the  eighteenth  century! 
Steele,  one  of  the  most  delightful  of  moralists  of  some- 
what earlier  times,  preached  decency  and  good  manners 
effectively  in  the  pages  of  the  Tatler  and  Spectator^  but  he 
looked  facts  in  the  face  and  asked  for  grace  when  his  own 
work  came  upon  the  boards.  Here  is  a  passage  from  the 
Prologue  to  his  Funeral ^  or  Grief  a  la  Mode  (1701): 

No,  in  Old  England  nothing  can  be  won 
Without  a  Faction,  —  good  or  ill  be  done. 
To  own  this  our  frank  Author  does  not  fear 
But  hopes  for  a  prevailing  Party  here. 

How  the  several  parties  sought  to  prevail  when  Cato 
was  produced,  we  have  already  seen;  but  Whig  and  Tory 
factions  were  much  less  troublesome  than  others.  In 
1773,  for  instance,  there  were  costly  riots  at  Covent  Gar- 
den, simply  because  a  clique  in  the  audience  wanted 
Macklin  discharged,  while  some  years  later  there  was  an 
outrageous  disturbance  in  the  theatre  at  Edinburgh 
because  the  audience  did  not  like  the  way  the  manager 
had  cast  the  parts  in  a  revival  of  Venice  Preserved.^  Col- 
ley  Cibber  writes  that  his  play.  Love  in  a  Riddle^  was 
howled  down  at  Drury  Lane  in  1729  for  no  other  reason 

1  Covent  Garden  Newspaper  Cuttings,  1760-1789  (British  Museum). 

2  Doran,  II,  71-72;  Genest,  VI,  499-506. 


146         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

than  that  the  audience  suspected  him  —  unjustly  —  of 
having  caused  the  suppression  of  Polly^  the  sequel  to  The 
Beggar  s  Opera;  ^  and  Cibber  Junior  suffered  even  more 
seriously  at  the  hands  of  an  audience  which  constituted 
itself  the  guardian  of  public  virtue  and  morality.  In 
1738  Theophilus  had  lost  his  sensational  and  disgraceful 
lawsuit  against  his  wife's  lover.  When  next  he  appeared, 
the  hurly-burly  broke  loose  against  him  and  he  was  pelted 
off  the  stage.2  Perhaps  he  deserved  his  fate,  but  it  is  dis- 
gusting to  read  that  exactly  the  same  treatment  was 
meted  out,  in  King  William's  time,  to  an  actor  named 
Smith,  whose  sole  offense  was  that  he  tried  to  return  to 
the  stage  after  having  served  as  a  volunteer  in  the  army 
of  the  deposed  King  James.^ 

In  a  measure,  the  players  and  managers  themselves 
were  to  blame  for  such  excesses.  It  is  true,  at  least,  that 
they  invited  interference  by  carrying  to  the  public  each 
and  every  little  dispute  of  their  own.  Mrs.  Clive  at  one 
time  believed  that  she  was  not  being  paid  enough,  and  so 
she  straightway  wrote  a  pamphlet  calling  upon  the  public 
to  right  her  wrongs.  When  Mrs.  Bellamy  and  Mrs. 
Yates  —  or  any  other  pair  of  actresses  —  could  not  agree 
as  to  who  should  play  which  part,  they  immediately 
memorialized  the  public  and  called  for  a  decision,  —  and 
so,  on  other  occasions,  did  Colman  and  his  partners,  and 
other  proprietors  or  managers,  each  one  protesting  that 
the  public  alone  could  decide  the  issue.^  No  wonder  the 
public  took  them  at  their  word  —  and  bettered  the  in- 
struction when  it  desired  to  make  some  point  of  its  own! 
At  all  events,  there  was  many  an  outbreak,  and  no  fine 
distinctions  were  made.  Whether  it  was  an  unpopular 
license  law  such  as  that  of  1737,  or  an  advance  of  rates  of 

1  Apology,  I,  244-250. 

*  Apology  for  the  Life  oj  Mr.  T  .  .  .  C  .  .  .,  1740,  pp.  62-64. 
3  Fitzgerald,  I,  178-179. 

*  Cf.  above,  p.  118.  Many  such  cases  are  recorded:  see  Fitzgerald,  II, 
224-227;  Oulton,  II,  19-30,  103-106,  204-209. 


THE  MANAGERS  147 

admission  (such  as  that  which  led  to  the  destructive 
Old  Price  riots  so  late  as  1809),  "the  liberty-loving  pub- 
lic" was  ready  at  any  and  all  times  to  express  its  views, 
and  that  emphatically. 

The  poor  managers  had  to  make  the  most  of  this  bad 
business,  besides  bearing  up  as  cheerfully  as  they  could 
under  other  burdens.  There  was,  for  instance,  the  old 
prohibition  of  playing  on  Church  holidays,  —  kept  up 
from  Elizabethan  times  (when  many  company  licenses 
specifically  forbade  acting  on  such  days)  until  well  into  the 
nineteenth  century.  The  Co  vent  Garden  actors  of  1799 
complained  bitterly  of  the  hardship  of  enforced  idleness 
and  no  pay  on  Whitsun  and  Christmas  Eves,  on  Royal 
Martyr's  Day,  during  all  of  Passion  Week,  and  on  other 
occasions  when  by  Act  of  Parliament  or  at  the  request  of 
the  bishops  the  theatres  were  required  to  keep  their  doors 
shut.^  Genest,  writing  well  after  the  turn  of  the  century, 
pointed  out  that  these  restrictions  did  not  then  hold  in 
Ireland,  and  protested  that  no  moral  turpitude  need  be 
involved  in  urging  their  abolition  in  England.  "  It  is  to  be 
hoped,"  he  says,  "...  that  the  time  will  come,  when  it 
shall  no  longer  be  considered  as  essential  to  the  good 
morals  of  the  nation  to  have  12  musical  pieces  ^  per- 
formed in  the  spring  of  every  year  in  lieu  of  as  many 
plays." 

There  were  still  other  occasions  when  the  theatre  must 
needs  remain  in  a  state  of  suspended  animation.  A  con- 
temporary Advertisement  by  the  managers  proclaims  that 
the  Drury  Lane  company  did  not  act  from  October  26  to 
December  14,  1709,  "by  reason  of  Prince  George's  illness 
and  death."  ^  Again,  twenty-eight  years  later,  both  Dub- 
lin theatres  were  closed  for  six  weeks,  "by  order  of  the 
Lord  Lieutenant,  on  account  of  the  death  of  Queen  Caro- 

^  Observations  on  Differences  at  Coven t  Garden,  pp.  37-38. 
2  Oratorios.  But  some  of  these  hardly  deserved  to  be  described  as  sacred 
music.   Genest,  X,  549-550. 

^  Reprinted  in  Edwin's  Eccentricities ,  I,  219-224. 


148         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

line."  Colley  Cibber,  writing  of  Queen  Anne's  death  in 
1 714,  remarks  that  the  ceremony  of  shutting  up  the 
theatres  for  six  weeks  upon  the  death  of  a  reigning  mon- 
arch had  always  been  observed  on  the  like  occasions,  and 
that,  except  when  such  an  event  happened  to  occur  dur- 
ing the  summer  closing,  it  fell  "like  wet  Weather  upon 
their  Harvest."  ^  Certainly,  when  taken  together  with 
other  ceremonies  required  at  such  times,  —  the  renewal 
of  patents  and  the  shuffling  of  sinecure  posts  like  Col- 
lier's and  Steele's,  —  the  long  closing  of  the  theatres 
incident  upon  the  passing  of  a  monarch  was  no  slight 
blow. 

We  have  seen,  too,  how  certain  theatrical  monarchs 
were  perplexed  with  something  more  than  mere  fear  of 
change  when  the  Licensing  Act  fell  upon  them  like  a  bolt 
from  the  blue.  It  should  be  clearly  understood,  however, 
that  ways  and  means  were  sought  —  and  sometimes 
found  —  to  evade  that  law,  long  before  it  died  a  natural 
death.  Foote,  as  we  have  noticed,  continued  to  dispense 
dramatic  entertainment  while  pretending  to  serve  tea  and 
chocolate,  and  others  followed  his  lead  as  best  they 
could.  Thus  the  Goodman's  Fields  Theatre  in  1741  sold 
tickets  for  "a  Concert  of  Vocal  and  Instrumental  Music," 
after  which  Richard  III^  with  Garrick  in  the  title  role, 
was  "performed  Gratis"!  Three  years  later,  at  the  Little 
Theatre  in  the  Hay,  Theophilus  Cibber  opened  a  dra- 
matic Academy,  so-called:  he  sold  tickets  for  concerts, 
and  then  gave  his  customers  extra  value  by  exhibiting 
"gratis"  a  "rehearsal"  in  the  form  of  a  play  named 
Romeo  and  Juliet.  The  Academy  was  closed  by  a  threat 
of  legal  proceedings  after  a  few  performances,  but  in 
1756  Cibber  repeated  his  experiment.  This  time  he  ad- 
vertised that  "Cibber  and  Company,  Snuff-Merchants," 
sold  at  their  warehouse  at  Richmond  Hill  "most  excellent 
cephalic  snuff,  which,  taken  in  moderate  quantities,  in 

'  Apology^  II,  161-162. 


THE  MANAGERS  149 

the  evening  especially,  will  not  fail  to  raise  the  spirits, 
clear  the  brain,  throw  off  all  ill  humours,  dispel  the  spleen, 
enliven  the  imagination,  .  .  .  give  joy  to  the  heart." 
Here,  too,  there  were  "public  rehearsals,  without  hire, 
gain,  or  reward."  ^ 

After  this  account  of  some  of  the  hardships  inflicted 
upon  players  and  managers  by  an  unsympathetic  world 
without,  it  remains  only  to  add  a  word  concerning  certain 
trials  which  were  of  their  own  making,  and  less  hard  to 
bear.  I  have  already  shown  that  competition  within  the 
ranks  was  often  severe,  and  from  time  to  time  forced 
this  or  that  manager  to  sink  great  sums  of  money  in 
wholly  unprofitable  productions.-  Again,  the  luring 
away  of  players  from  one  company  to  another  must 
have  given  the  managers  many  an  anxious  moment,  — 
and  there  were  still  other  expensive  forms  of  rivalry.  A 
case  in  point  is  the  famous  season  of  1750-51,  when  Gar- 
rick  and  Mrs.  Bellamy  at  Drury  Lane  played  Romeo  and 
Juliet  against  Barry  and  Mrs.  Gibber  at  Covent  Garden 
night  after  night  until  the  town  was  tired  of  the  contest. 
A  rhymed  protest  of  the  day  expressed  the  sentiment  of 
the  audiences: 

"Well,  what's  to-night?"  says  angry  Ned 

As  up  from  bed  he  rouses: 
"Romeo  again!"  and  shakes  his  head,  — 
"A  plague  on  both  your  houses!  " 

But  a  point  of  honor  was  at  stake  in  this  contest,  and  so 
the  managers  pocketed  their  slim  receipts  philosophically, 
and  (as  Mrs.  Bellamy  reports)  Issued  a  "great  deal  of 
paper"  to  fill  their  houses.^    Even  so,  they  might  have 

1  Fitzgerald,  II,  204-205;  Genest,  IV,  12-13,  I7°>  ^23;  T.  Gibber,  A 
Serio-Comic  Apology,  appended  to  his  "revis'd"  Romeo  and  Juliet,  [1748], 
pp.  78  fF.  Appendix  to  Second  Dissertation,  p.  1 13  {Gibber's  Two  Dissertations, 
[1756]). 

*  See  above,  pp.  18-19. 

'  Davies,  Lije  of  Garrick,  I,  160-163;  Doran,  I,  365-366;  Life  of  G.  A. 
Bellamy,  3d  ed.,  1785,  II,  114;  Murphy,  Gray's  Inn  Journal,  No.  30. 


I50         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

done  worse.  When  the  theatres  were  silenced  there  was 
a  dead  loss,  whereas  competition,  expensive  as  it  some- 
times was,  kept  the  town  interested  and  thus  paid  for 
itself. 

Competition  had  been  keen  even  in  Elizabethan  times, 
and  if  the  management  of  Drury  Lane  or  Covent  Garden 
in  later  days  made  much  of  the  fact  that  Macklin  or 
Quin  or  Mrs.  Cibber  had  been  newly  won  over  for  a  season 
from  the  other  house,  Henslowe  and  his  cohorts  had 
doubtless  done  the  same  thing  more  than  a  century 
earlier  when  they  won  over  Will  Kemp  from  Shakspere's 
company.  1  Shakspere  himself  bears  ample  testimony  to 
the  rivalry  between  the  adult  companies  and  the  chil- 
dren,2  and  the  records  of  certain  theatrical  litigation  of 
1610  establish  the  fact  that  the  Burbages  and  the  owners 
of  the  Whitefriars  had  in  the  previous  year  '^compounded 
with"  the  manager  of  the  children^scompany  at  tjieL 
nouse  near  St.  Paul's  at  the  rate  of  £2,0  per  annum,  "that, 
there  might  be^Cessation_of^layeing^jpkyes^^_thgre^ 
UThe  Elizabethan  provinciaTcompames,  likewise,  were 
constantly  engaged  in  the  most  vigorous  sort  of  rivalry, 
even  to  the  extent  of  stealing  one  another's  licenses;  and 
the  stealing  of  plays  was  a  rather  commonplace  occur- 
rence, even  in  London.* 

We  have  seen  that  many  of  the  old  tricks  of  the  trade 
were  still  very  much  alive  in  Restoration  times  and  in  the 
eighteenth  century,  and  that  the  companies  continued  to 
borrow  each  other's  plays  and  players  with  delightful  in- 
formality. They  kept  a  keen  watch  upon  each  other  also 
when  it  came  to  securing  the  services  of  new  actors  who 
had  made  their  mark  in  the  provinces.  Thus,  both 
houses  sought  to  engage  James  Spiller,  sometime  about 
1708  or  1709,  when  that  comedian  had  won  fame  as  a 

^  See  above,  p.  74.  ''■  Hamlet,  ii,  2, 355  fF. 

^  Wallace,  Shakespeare  and  his  London  Associates,  pp.  95-96. 

*  Malone,  III,  229,  159-160;  cf.  the  writer's  note  in  Modern  Philology, 

XVII,  12. 


THE  MANAGERS  151 

stroller.  Again,  in  1775,  Garrick  sent  out  two  scouts  to 
report  concerning  the  acting  of  Mrs.  Siddons,  who  was 
beginning  to  make  a  reputation.  One  of  them  wrote  to 
his  principal  that  if  he  wished  to  engage  the  actress  it 
would  be  "necessary  to  strike  at  once,"  since  "some 
Covent  Garden  emissaries  were  hanging  about"  for  that 
very  purpose.^  Richard  Cumberland  tells  of  a  similar 
case,  —  that  of  Henderson,  whom  he  recommended  to 
Garrick  after  seeing  him  act  at  Bath.  While  Garrick 
hesitated,  Henderson  was  engaged  by  Colman  for  the 
Haymarket,  and  there  he  scored  so  heavily  that  Sheridan 
made  it  one  of  the  first  acts  of  his  management  to  secure 
him  for  Drury  Lane.^  Competition  of  this  sort,  of  course, 
far  outlived  the  eighteenth  century.  The  Master  Betty 
craze  of  1804  is  but  one  later  case  in  point.  Both  patent 
houses  laid  claim  to  the  valuable  services  of  this  infant 
prodigy,  and  an  official  arbitrator  decided  that  both 
claims  were  just.  And  so  the  boy  actor  played  first  at 
Covent  Garden  and  then  at  Drury  Lane,  to  average  re- 
ceipts of  £600  per  night.  One  hardly  wonders  that  both 
houses  wanted  him.^ 

Both  houses  also  (and  the  unlicensed  theatres  as  well) 
wanted  all  the  paying  plays  extant,  no  matter  whether 
they  were  old  or  new,  good,  bad,  or  indifferent.  Colley 
Cibber  regretfully  recalled  the  good  old  times  when  the 
choice  stock-plays  were  divided  between  the  two  com- 
panies, and  were  not  given  too  often  to  cloy  the  appetite 
of  their  patrons.  But,  says  Cibber,  with  reference  to  the 
season  of  1735-36,  "when  four  Houses  are  at  once  (as 
very  lately  they  were)  all  permitted  to  act  the  same 
Pieces,  .  .  .  the   best  Actors   will   soon   feel   that   the 

^  George  Akerby,  Life  oj  James  Spiller,  1729,  p.  ii;  Fitzgerald,  II,  307- 
308. 

*  Cumberland,  Memoirs,  I,  388-391. 

3  Cumberland,  II,  221 ;  G.  D.  Harley,  Authentic  Biographical  Sketch  of 
W.  H.  W.  Betty,  1804,  pp.  33-36;  Roscius  in  London,  Biographical  Memoirs  of 
Betty,  1805,  pp.  20-22;  F.  Reynolds,  II,  359-365. 


152         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

Town  has  enough  of  them."  ^  None  the  less,  the  town  for 
a  long  time  could  not  get  enough  of  some  of  its  favorite 
entertainments,  and  such  pieces  as  The  Beggar  s  Opera 
and  the  musical  version  of  Comus  served  the  several 
houses  for  many  years.  Now  and  then,  to  be  sure,  novel- 
ties had  to  be  provided.  Various  companies  of  French 
comedians  came  to  London  from  time  to  time,^  with  their 
scenes,  stage  decorations,  and  all;  but  if  the  home  players 
felt  their  competition,  they  could  always  resort  to  show 
and  spectacle,  with  good  chances  of  holding  their  own. 

If  there  were  no  French  players  to  fight,  and  yet  some- 
thing had  to  be  done  to  draw  the  town,  there  was  always 
the  other  house,  and  the  managers  did  not  forget  this  re- 
source in  time  of  trouble.  Gildon,  for  example,  recalls  the 
production  of  Dennis's  Iphigenia  at  Lincoln's  Inn  Fields 
in  1700.  Immediately  after  its  first  production,  there 
came,  at  the  other  house,  "  the  second  Iphegenia  in  all  her 
Charms,  and,  like  a  Superiour  Mistress  was  resolv'd  to 
eclipse  her  Rival:  No  Cost  was  spar'd  by  the  Masters,  nor 
toil  by  the  Actors";  but  it  was  love's  labor  lost,  for  both 
failed  miserably.^  Other  contests  of  this  sort  came  out 
with  varying  fortunes.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  both  the- 
atres had  full  houses  and  honest  doorkeepers  when  they 
played  The  Provoked  Wife  against  each  other  on  May  5, 
1747,  but  whether  they  had  or  not  is  uncertain.  We  do 
know,  however,  that  two  years  earlier,  when  Covent 
Garden  gave  Cibber's  Papal  Tyranny,  adapted  from 
King  John,  and  Drury  Lane  countered  with  the  very 
play  of  Shakspere  that  he  had  attempted  to  adapt,  the 
old  laureate  carried  off  considerable  profit,  if  no  great 
glory.* 

A  somewhat  different  complexion  of  affairs  is  suggested 
by  a  record  of  1789,  which  has  to  do  with  a  tragedy  en- 

'  Apology,  I,  92.  ^  Lawrence,  I,  128  ff. 

^  Comparison  between  the  Stages,  p.  40. 

*  T.  Cibber,  Serio-Comic  Apology,  appended  to  Romeo  and  Juliet,  1748, 
pp.  89-92;  Victor,  II,  49-50,  161-164;  Genest,  IV,  206,  162. 


THE  MANAGERS  153 

titled  Mascella.  Oulton  is  authority  for  the  statement 
that  this  piece  was  produced  at  Drury  Lane  "without 
the  Author's  consent,  and  got  up  in  such  haste,  to  fore- 
stall its  representation  at  the  other  house,  that  it  was  not 
much  liked."  ^  The  Romeo  and  Juliet  contest  of  1750 
and  the  King  Lear  competition  five  years  later,^  may  have 
bored  the  audiences  in  the  long  run,  but  at  least  there  was 
no  sharp  practice  involved.  That  competing  managers 
sometimes  went  rather  far  in  this  direction  appears  also 
from  another  point  made  by  Cibber.  It  seems  that  in  the 
season  of  1720-21  the  success  of  Drury  Lane  aroused 
an  envious  and  unscrupulous  opposition  which  noised 
abroad  the  rumor  that  the  walls  and  roof  of  the  play- 
house were  about  to  fall.  As  a  result,  the  audiences  de- 
creased from  day  to  day,  until  a  government  report 
vouching  for  the  safety  of  the  theatre  brought  back  a 
normal  attendance.^ 

It  is  only  fair  to  add  that  shifty  devices  of  this  sort 
were,  after  all,  distinctly  exceptional.  Competition  was 
severe,  but  probably  as  honest  as  in  almost  any  other 
business  or  profession.  There  were  times,  indeed,  when  it 
was  momentarily  dropped,  and  cooperation  tried  instead. 
As  early  as  1585,  James  Burbage  and  Henry  Laneman, 
the  proprietors  of  The  Theatre  and  the  Curtain,  pooled 
their  interests  and  agreed  formally  that  "the  proffittes  of 
the  said  ij  Playe  howses  might  for  vij  yeres  space  be  in 
Dyvydent  betwene  them."  **  Exactly  a  hundred  and 
fifty  years  later  history  repeated  itself  in  striking  fashion, 
for  in  December,  1735,  Charles  Fleetwood  and  John  Rich 
agreed  to  "divide  all  moneys  at  each  play  house  (viz.  the 
Theatre  Royall  in  Drury  Lane  and  the  Theatre  Royall  in 
Convent  Garden)  aboue  Fifty  pounds  share  and  share  like 
for  the  remainder  part  of  this  Season,  and  to  pay  to  each 
other  so  much  money  as  shall  be  wanting  to  make  vp 

^  II,  54.  ^  Doran,  I,  409;  Genest,  IV,  467-470. 

'  Apology,  II,  176-177.       •*  Wallace,  First  London  Theatre,  pp.  12,  149. 


154         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

fifty  pounds  each  Night,  and  to  meet  once  a  week  to  Bal- 
lance  accounts."  ^  But  neither  of  these  arrangements 
lasted  very  long:  the  first  terminated  when  Burbage  be- 
came involved  with  his  landlord  and  other  enemies,  and 
the  second  lapsed  with  Fleetwood's  failure.^ 

I  have  already  referred  to  another  Elizabethan  the- 
atrical combination  in  restraint  of  trade,  —  the  Black- 
friars-Whitefriars  agreement  of  1610;  but  that  also  was 
short-lived,  for  the  parties  were  facing  each  other  in  court 
before  the  end  of  the  year.^  Further,  it  is  interesting  to 
recall  the  so-called  "union"  of  the  four  leading  Eliza- 
bethan companies  which  seems  to  have  been  effected 
soon  after  Shakspere's  death.  Of  this  arrangement,  how- 
ever, very  little  is  known,  except  that  Sir  Henry  Herbert 
speaks  of  "the  four  companies"  in  such  a  way  as  to  sug- 
gest that  a  working  agreement  of  some  sort  may  have  ex- 
^  isted.  That  possibility  is  strengthened  by  the  fact  that 
John  Hemings,  in  161 8,  bought  Jrom  Sir_GteQrge_Buc_ 
(Hieiin3^^?^LSZlRev£lsX_a^Lenten_^^ 
The^name  of  the  four  companys."  *  Malone  thought  that 
'  "a  penuryof  actors'^  brought  about  this  union,  —  a 
view  for  which  there  is  no  evidence,  and  which  is  not 
more  likely  to  have  been  the  reason  for  combination  then, 
than  in  the  time  of  Fleetwood  and  Rich,  when,  if  any- 
thing, there  was  an  over-production  rather  than  a  penury 
of  actors.  Certain  companies  had,  in  fact,  joined  forces 
occasionally  even  in  Shakspere's  lifetime;  indeed,  his  own 
colleagues  played  together  with  the  Lord  Admiral's  Men 
before  Queen  Elizabeth  in  1586.  But  the  purpose  of  this 
and  similar  performances  was  simply  to  do  honor  to  the 
Queen  or  to  some  other  great  personage.^  As  for  the  later 

1  C.  J.  Smith,  Historical  and  Literary  Curiosities,  Plate  52;  H,  S.  Wynd- 
ham.  Annals  of  Covent  Garden  Theatre,  I,  49-50. 
»  See  above,  pp.  129,  141. 

3  Wallace,  Shakespeare  and  his  London  Associates,  pp.  95-96. 
*  Malone,  III,  65,  224. 
6  Halliwell-Phillipps,  Illustrations,  p.  31. 


THE  MANAGERS  155 

union  of  the  companies,  all  that  can  be  said  is  that,  if  it 
ever  was  more  than  a  very  loose  understanding,  it  prob- 
ably did  not  last  long.  At  all  events,  there  was  keen 
competition  once  again,  long  before  the  closing  of  the  the- 
atres, and  much  stealing  of  plays  and  switching  about  of 
actors.^ 

Rich  and  Fleetwood  were  not  the  only  eighteenth- 
century  managers  who  tried  to  join  forces  for  the  com- 
mon good.  Sheridan  of  Drury  Lane  and  Harris  of  Covent 
Garden  were  close  friends,  and  so  it  happened  that  soon 
after  Garrick's  departure  the  affairs  of  the  two  patent 
houses  were  conducted  in  what  contemporary  observers 
conceived  to  be  an  entirely  unprecedented  fashion.  "So 
convinced  was  each,"  writes  Frederick  Reynolds,  "that 
he  himself  should  only  be  injured  by  a  hostile  conduct 
towards  the  other,  that  the  stars  of  the  one  house  more 
than  once  performed  with  the  stars  of  the  opposing  com- 
pany." What  is  more,  they  believed  so  strongly  in  co- 
operation that  they  jointly  took  a  long  lease  of  the  opera 
house,  thereby  "in  fact  monopolizing  the  regulation  of 
the  whole  theatrical  amusement  of  the  fashion  of  the 
town."  -  But  they  soon  found  that  the  scheme  did  not 
work.  Their  receipts  dwindled  rapidly,  and  they  had  to 
give  up  the  opera  and  discontinue  the  exchange  of  players. 
So  late  as  1799  the  players  of  Covent  Garden  still  com- 
plained of  a  "managerial  compact"  which  prevented  dis- 
satisfied actors  of  one  house  from  finding  employment  in 
the  other,  but  the  managers  characterized  this  charge 
unreservedly  as  "a  false  assertion  and  invidious  per- 
sonality." ^  Certainly  they  and  their  successors  learned 
more  and  more  that  theatrical  managers,  owners,  and 
producers  have  many  things  in  common.  But  better 
understanding  and  organization  have  not  obscured  the 
old  principle  that  competition  is  the  life  of  trade. 

1  See  above,  pp.  150,  107.  *  Life  and  Times,  II,  229-230. 

'  Observations  on  Differences  at  Covent  Garden. 


Chapter  V 


THE  THEATRES  AND  THE  COURT 

IN  the  year  1390  King  Richard  II  presented  to  divers 
clerks  of  the  city  of  London  the  sum  of  ten  pounds 
sterhng  "as  his  gift  on  account  of  the  play  of  The  Passion 
of  our  Lord  and  the  Creation  of  the  World^'  ^  performed  at 
Skinners'  Well.  Almost  two  hundred  and  fifty  years 
later  William  Prynne  visited  his  wrath  upon  King 
Charles  I  and  his  queen  because  they  had  indulged  the 
traditional  royal  fondness  for  things  dramatic.  The 
lavishing  of  "  unspeakeable  gifts  .  .  .  upon  Stage-play- 
ers ..  .  out  of  the  publike  Treasury"  Prynne,  by  a 
clever  innuendo,  represented  as  one  of  the  besetting  sins 
of  England's  rulers  from  time  immemorial.  He  scolds 
Henry  VIII  for  having  "spent  infinite  summes  of  mony 
upon  Stage-playes,  Masques,  and  such  like  prodigall 
Shewes  and  Pageants,"  and  he  is  bold  enough  to  bring  his 
protest  down  to  his  own  times.  The  extravagant  "Playes 
and  Masques"  of  King  Charles  and  his  consort,  he  writes, 
"have  been  wel-nigh  as  expensive  as  the  Wars."  ^  I  have 
shown  elsewhere  that  Prynne  knew  whereof  he  spoke,' 
but  it  will  serve  our  purposes  to  review  the  evidence  here, 
—  first,  as  to  the  relations,  financial  and  otherwise,  be- 
tween the  court  and  the  players  from  Queen  Elizabeth's 
accession  to  the  closing  of  the  theatres  in  1642.  The 
sequel  will  show  once  more  that  the  Restoration  and  the 
eighteenth  century  carried  on  the  old  traditions  prac- 
tically without  a  break,  for  of  the  many  interesting  con- 

*  Devon,  Issues  oj  the  Exchequer,  pp.  244-245. 
^  Histrio-Mastix,  pp.  320-321. 

2  The  Players  at  Court,  Journal  oj  English  and  Germanic  Philology,  Jan- 
uary, 1920,  XIX,  19  fF. 

156 


THEATRES  AND   COURT  157 

nections  and  cross-connections  between  the  theatres  of 
that  time  and  the  court  there  is  scarcely  one  that  cannot 
readily  be  traced  back  to  Shakspere's  day. 

One  point  of  difference,  however,  may  be  noted  at  the 
outset.  It  follows  inevitably  from  the  fundamental 
change  in  the  status  of  the  companies  after  the  Restora- 
tion. Before  that  time  all  performances  at  court  had 
been  directly  in  charge  of  the  companies,  and  all  court 
payments  —  as  shown  by  many  extant  warrants' — were 
their  perquisite.  Thereafter,  the  responsibility  for  such 
performances,  and  the  remuneration,  belonged  to  the 
paten  tees. 2  There  is,  it  should  be  said,  one  reason  above 
all  others  for  going  into  these  matters  and  others  that 
have  to  do  with  the  court  and  the  theatres.  Everybody 
knows  that  court  taste  and  court  favor  counted  very 
heavily  in  the  days  of  the  Tudors  and  Stuarts.  Players 
who  won  success  at  court  were  almost  certain  of  the  favor 
of  the  general  public.  Court  performances  gave  them 
vogue  and  won  them  invaluable  support  against  the  on- 
slaughts of  the  Puritans,  —  and  the  excellence  of  their 
plays  did  the  rest.  In  Restoration  and  Georgian  times 
also,  court  influence  repeatedly  brought  golden  rewards 
to  certain  favored  dramatists  and  players.  The  court, 
moreover,  exercised  an  ever  more  powerful  control  over 
the  policy  and  fortunes  of  the  theatres  as  time  went  on,  so 
that  from  any  point  of  view  our  subject  is  worthy  of 
attention. 

Queen  Elizabeth  was  as  fond  of  the  drama  —  and  of 
pomp  and  show  of  any  kind  —  as  ever  her  father  had 
been,  but  she  had  less  money  and  more  prudence. 
Henry  VIII's  two-day  revels  in  151 1  cost  him  a  sum 
which  would  have  covered  the  expenses  of  Elizabeth's 

1  See  Cunningham,  Revels  at  Court,  pp.  xxvii  ff.;  Chalmers,  Apology,  pp. 
394  fF.,  507  fF.;  E.  K.  Chambers,  Modern  Language  Review,  IV,  153  ff.;  Mrs. 
Stopes,  Burbage  and  Shakespeare's  Stage,  pp.  246  ff. 

*  Chalmers,  p.  530;  see  below,  p.  161. 


158         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

Revels  Office  for  eight  or  ten  years. ^  The  Queen  was 
forced  to  cut  down  the  number  and  the  costhness  of  the 
gorgeous  pageants  at  court,  but  by  way  of  compensation 
she  called  for  more  and  more  performances  by  the  pro- 
fessional companies.  The  records  are  not  complete,  but 
they  do  supply  considerable  information.^  They  show, 
among  other  things,  that  between  1558  and  1585  no  less 
than  twenty  different  companies  played  before  the 
Queen,  and  that  in  the  forty-five  years  of  her  reign  she 
saw  at  least  two  hundred  and  thirty  professional  per- 
formances, an  average  of  five  a  year.  Forty-four  of  these 
performances,  be  it  noted,  were  given  by  Shakspere's 
company.  And  the  players  were  not  required  to  sigh 
gratis,  for  Queen  Elizabeth,  unlike  some  of  her  successors, 
paid  her  bills  promptly.  Until  the  year  1575  her  treas- 
urer regularly  allowed  ten  marks  (£6  i^s.  ^d.)  for  each 
performance,  according  to  the  precedent  set  by  King 
Henry  VII  in  1507;  thereafter  the  queen  usually  added 
a  "special  rewarde"  of  five  marks,  which  brought  the 
total  payment  up  to  £10. 

Investigators  in  this  field  have  noted  that  Queen 
Elizabeth's  two  successors  sometimes  omitted  this  extra 
reward  when  they  did  not  grace  court  performances  with 
their  own  royal  presence.^  A  detail  more  worthy  of  em- 
phasis is  this:  the  queen  had  her  regular  rates  of  payment, 
but  she  was  human  and  feminine  enough  to  disregard  the 
rules  when  she  was  especially  pleased,  or  displeased. 
Thus,  on  February  10,  1572,  Richard  Mulcaster  and  his 
boys  of  the  Merchant  Taylors'  School  received  "by  her 
majesties  owne  comaundement"  the  double  fee  of  £20, 
and  on  fourteen  other  occasions  before  1585  she  paid  her 
entertainers  more  than   the  usual  £10.    On  the  other 

*  Wallace,  Evolution  oj  the  English  Drama,  pp.  36-37;  Feuillerat,  Revels 
Documents,  p.  109. 

^  For  full  references  see  Journal  of  English  and  Germanic  Philology,  Jan- 
uary, 1920,  XIX,  19  fF. 

2  Chambers,  Modern  Language  Review,  IV,  153. 


THEATRES  AND   COURT  159 

hand,  she  seems  occasionally  to  have  expressed  her  disap- 
proval, for  two  or  three  times  towards  the  close  of  her 
reign  one-fourth  or  even  one-half  of  the  regular  allow- 
ance was  deducted.^ 

In  this  respect  King  James  I  and  his  son  were  more 
masculine  than  the  Queen,  for,  with  but  one  or  two  ex- 
ceptions, they  did  not  vary  their  rewards.  In  1593,  1599, 
and  1 601,  James  had  cordially  welcomed  to  Edinburgh 
certain  visiting  companies  of  English  players,  in  spite  of 
the  strenuous  objections  of  the  Scottish  clergy .2  And  on 
December  3,  1603  —  immediately  after  his  accession  to 
the  English  crown  —  he  caused  to  be  paid  to  "John 
Hemyngs,  one  of  his  Ma^'^  players"  the  sum  of  £30,  for 
bringing  his  company  to  "the  Courte  at  Wilton,"  — 
which  was  the  seat  of  the  Earl  of  Pembroke,  the  Lord 
Chamberlain, —  "and  there  presentinge  before  his  Ma*'® 
one  playe."  ^  After  this  generous  beginning,  the  king  re- 
turned to  the  old  rate  of  £10  for  each  performance,  but  he 
and  his  successor  saw  far  more  plays  than  Elizabeth. 
James,  in  a  reign  less  than  half  as  long  as  hers,  called  the 
players  to  his  court  almost  twice  as  often.  In  other  words, 
the  records  show  an  average  of  seventeen  court  per- 
formances a  year  in  his  time;  and  this  figure  rose  to 
twenty-five  in  Charles  I's  reign.^  The  superiority  of 
Shakspere's  company,  and  the  high  favor  it  enjoyed  at 
court,  are  attested  by  the  fact  that,  of  all  the  known  pay- 
ments to  players  from  1603  ^o  the  closing  of  the  theatres, 
almost  two-thirds  went  to  this  company,  —  the  King's 
Men.  The  companies  under  the  patronage  of  the  Queen, 
the  Princess  Elizabeth,  and  the  two  princes,  were  also 
called  upon  from  time  to  time,  but  the  court  was,  to  all 

1  Cunningham,  p.  xxxiii;  Wallace,  Evolutioriy  pp.  215,  224-225. 

^  J.  C.  Dibdin,  Annals  oj  the  Edinburgh  Stage,  pp.  20  ^. 

^  Cunningham,  p.  xxxiv. 

*  The  figures  are  as  follows:  James  I  (1603-1625),  373  performances; 
Charles  I  (1625-1641),  389  performances.  It  should  be  noted  once  more  that 
the  records  are  incomplete.  See  above,  p.  158,  n.  2. 


i6o         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

intents  and  purposes,  closed  entirely  to  all  other  com- 
panies. 

The  favored  few,  as  we  shall  see  in  a  moment,  enjoyed 
certain  emoluments  over  and  above  the  regular  fees  for 
court  plays;  but  the  prodigality  of  the  Stuarts  had  its  dis- 
advantage even  for  the  actors.  If  it  had  stopped  with  the 
frequent  indulgence  in  performances  by  the  professional 
players,  the  royal  patrons  would  hardly  have  been  em- 
barrassed to  find  the  wherewithal  to  pay.  But  of  course 
it  did  not  stop  there.  James  I,  for  example,  spent  £4,000 
for  a  single  court  masque  in  161 8  (considerably  more  than 
the  total  of  all  his  known  payments  to  the  players),^  and 
by  Prynne's  time  the  scale  of  expenditure  had  become  so 
extravagant  that  the  Inns  of  Court  spent  £21,000  (in 
1633)  to  make  their  answer  to  Prynne,  the  great  masque 
in  honor  of  the  king  and  queen,  a  worthy  exhibition  of 
their  loyalty.^  Under  the  circumstances  it  is  not  surpris- 
ing that  those  who  had  even  comparatively  modest 
claims  upon  the  exchequer,  often  had  to  wait  for  their 
money.  Whereas  in  the  days  of  Good  Queen  Bess  the 
companies  had  usually  been  paid  two  days  after  playing,* 
they  sometimes  had  to  wait  two  or  three  years  under 
James  and  Charles.  Thus  the  Duke  of  York's  Men  were 
paid  in  January,  161 2,  for  plays  they  had  presented  at 
court  in  1610  and  161 1,  and  the  bills  of  the  King's  Men  in 
later  years  were  usually  allowed  to  run  into  the  hundreds 
of  pounds  before  they  were  settled.  The  companies  at  the 
Henslowe  theatres,  meanwhile,  sometimes  raised  loans  on 
security  of  this  "cort  mony."  ■* 

Other  times  brought  other  manners,  but  kings  con- 
tinued to  manifest  certain  amiable  human  weaknesses  in 

1  Which  total  about  £3,400. 

2  See  Reyher,  Les  Masques  Anglais,  pp.  71  fF.;  M.  Sullivan,  Court  Masques 
of  James  I,  pp.  106,  144. 

^  Cf.  documents  in  Wallace,  Cunningham,  etc. 

*  Cunningham,  p.  xlii;  Chalmers,  Apology,  p.  511;  Henslowe' s  Diary,  I, 
1 40. 


THEATRES  AND   COURT  i6i 

the  matter  of  paying  their  bills.  Charles  II,  for  example, 
kept  Tom  Killigrew  waiting  over  four  and  a  half  years 
before  he  ordered  the  payment  of  his  just  debt  of  "One 
thousand  &  fifty  pounds  for  plays  acted  before  their 
Ma*'*'  by  his  Ma*"'*  Comoedians  at  Court  and  at  the 
Theater  from  the  third  of  March  1662  to  ye  twentieth  of 
November,  1666."^  Mr.  W.  J.  Lawrence  has  called  atten- 
tion to  what  John  Evelyn  termed  the  "scandalous"  con- 
ditions at  court  nine  years  later.  Then,  according  to 
Andrew  Marvell,  "all  sorts  of  people"  flocked  to  the 
private  royal  theatre  at  Whitehall  to  see  the  Italian 
players,  "paying  their  money  as  at  a  common  playhouse; 
nay,  even  a  twelve  penny  gallery  is  builded  for  the  con- 
venience of  his  Majesty's  poor  subjects."  ^  The  point 
was,  apparently,  that  the  king  owed  the  players  money, 
and  good-naturedly  permitted  them  to  fill  their  coffers 
meanwhile  with  the  aid  of  the  general  public.  That  this 
was  the  situation  appears  almost  certain  from  a  remark  of 
Colley  Cibber's  in  connection  with  certain  court  per- 
formances given  when  he  was  a  patentee.  To  these  we 
shall  come  in  their  turn.  Concerning  the  players  of 
Charles  IPs  time,  and  their  procedure  when  the  court  was 
at  Windsor,  Cibber  expresses  himself  as  follows:  "Tho' 
they  acted  in  St.  George's  Hall,  within  the  Royal  Palace, 
yet  (as  I  have  been  inform'd  by  an  Eye-witness)  they 
were  permitted  to  take  Money  at  the  Door  of  every 
Spectator;  whether  this  was  an  Indulgence,  in  Con- 
science I  cannot  say;  but  it  was  a  common  Report  among 
the  principal  Actors,  when  I  first  came  into  the  Theatre- 
Royall,  in  1690,  that  there  was  then  due  to  the  Company 
from  that  Court  about  One  Thousand  Five  Hundred 
Pounds  for  Plays  commanded,  &c."  ^ 

There  is  more  to  say  of  the  court  of  Charles  II,  but  for 
the  moment  we  have  not  done  with  that  of  his  father  and 

'  See  below,  p.  170,  and  Appendix  I,  p.  289. 

^  Lawrence,  Elizabethan  Playhouse,  I,  146.  ^  Apology,  II,  210. 


i62         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

grandfather.  For  one  thing,  it  may  be  noted  here  that 
beginning  with  Charles  I's  time  the  players'  fee  was  fre- 
quently doubled  when  their  court  performances  were 
given  in  the  afternoon  or  at  one  of  the  palaces  outside  of 
London,  so  that  the  regular  public  performance  could  not 
be  given  on  the  same  day.  James  and  Queen  Elizabeth, 
so  far  as  one  can  tell  from  their  warrants  of  payment,^ 
did  not  trouble  themselves  to  make  any  such  extra  al- 
lowance. Probably  they  considered  that  the  prestige 
they  conferred  upon  the  companies  more  than  paid  them 
for  the  occasional  interference  with  their  regular  business. 
Charles  I  was  more  generous  in  this  respect  and  in  some 
others.  As  I  have  already  pointed  out,  neither  he  nor  his 
father  ordinarily  paid  more  than  the  old  £io  per  play, 
though  Charles  loosened  his  purse  strings  on  one  oc- 
casion, in  1637,  when  the  King's  Men  received  £30  "for 
their  paynes  in  studying  and  acting  the  new  Play  sent 
from  Oxford  called  The  Royal  Slave.''  ^  James,  however, 
had  led  the  way  in  another  direction,  and  here  Charles 
improved  upon  his  father's  teaching.  James  had  hardly 
come  into  his  own  when,  in  February,  1604,  ^^^  Plague 
put  a  temporary  quietus  upon  all  acting.  Shakspere's 
company  had  already  won  favor  with  the  king  at  Wilton, 
but  like  all  the  rest  it  was  forced  to  suspend  its  activities 
"till  it  shall  please  God  to  settle  the  cyttie  in  a  more  per- 
fect health."  But  James  did  not  altogether  forget  them 
and  their  difficulties.  To  tide  them  over  their  lean  days 
he  sent  them  a  subsidy  of  £30,  and  again,  in  1609  and 
1 6 10,  when  the  company  was  once  more  restrained  for 
the  same  reason,  Hemings  received  from  him  the  sums  of 
£40  and  £30,  respectively,  to  help  them  on.^  Charles  I 
did  even  better,  for  he  sent  his  players  £100  in  Septem- 

*  Cf.  Malone,  III,  168;  Chalmers,  Apology,  pp.  394  ff.;  Cunningham,  p. 
xxvii,  etc. 

2  Chalmers,  p.  509;  Malone,  III,  239;  Cunningham,  p.  xxv;  Murray,  1, 
177,  182;  Stopes,  Burbage,  p.  260;  Wallace,  Evolution,  pp.  210  ff. 

^  Cunningham,  pp.  xxxv,  xxxix,  xl. 


THEATRES  AND  COURT.  163 

ber,  1630,  "in  regard  of  their  great  hinderance  of  late 
received,"  and  six  years  later,  when  the  Plague  again 
raged  fiercely,  a  special  grant  of  £20  weekly,  during 
pleasure,  since  they  are  "to  keepe  themselves  together 
neere  our  Court  for  our  service."  ^ 

Charles  I  and  his  queen,  moreover,  knew  how  to  show 
their  favor  to  the  actors  in  still  other  ways,  and  here  their 
son  and  heir  followed  their  example.  In  December,  1625 
Charles  I  was  "pleased  ...  to  bestowe  upon  .  .  .  our 
players  .  .  .  the  somme  of  one  hundred  marks  for  the 
better  furnishing  them  with  apparrell."  Eight  years  later 
Sir  Henry  Herbert  referred,  in  an  entry  of  his  office-book, 
to  an  equally  generous  gift  of  Queen  Henrietta's.  Twice 
that  season,  according  to  Sir  Henry,  the  King's  Men 
played  before  their  majesties  at  Denmark  House  "Flet- 
chers pastorall  called  The  Faithfull  Shepheardesse  in  the 
clothes  the  Queene  had  given  Taylor  ^  the  year  before  of 
her  owne  pastorall."  ^  Whether  or  not  Charles  II  did  any- 
thing for  the  players  when  the  Plague  silenced  them  we 
do  not  know,  but  there  is  no  doubt  that  he  emulated  his 
parents'  example  in  helping  them  to  look  their  best. 
Downes  writes  that  when  D'Avenant's  Love  and  Honour 
was  acted  in  1661,  it  was  "Richly  Cloath'd;  The  King 
giving  Mr.  Betterton  his  Coronation  Suit;  .  .  .  The 
Duke  of  York  giving  Mr.  Harris  his  .  .  .  ;  And  my  Lord 
of  Oxford,  gave  Mr.  Joseph  Price  his."  I  may  note  in 
passing  that  the  actors  had  the  use  of  these  splendid 
robes  at  least  once  more,  in  1666,  when  they  acted  Or- 
rery's King  Henry  V.^  The  ladies  of  the  royal  family, 
moreover,  were  equally  enthusiastic.  The  Duchess  of 
York,  it  is  said,  was  so  delighted  with  the  acting  of  Mrs. 
Barry  that  she  lent  her  her  own  wedding  dress  to  wear  on 

1  Collier,  I,  459;  II,  12. 

^  The  business  manager  of  the  company  at  that  time. 

3  Hazlitt,  English  Drama  and  Stage,  p.  61;  Malone,  III,  234-235. 

*■  Downes,  p.  21  (cf.  pp.  28-29);  Lowe,  Betterton,  pp.  83,  92-93. 


^ 


164         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

the  stage,  and  later,  when  the  Duchess  had  become  Queen 
of  England,  her  coronation  robes. ^ 

Other  great  lords  and  ladies  followed  the  example  thus 
set  by  royalty,^  but  royalty  did  not  stop  with  lending  its 
own  robes  to  the  players.  Pepys  reports,  on  December  11, 
1667,  that  Catiline  was  "to  be  suddenly  acted  at  the 
King's  house.  .  .  .  The  King  gives  them  £500  for  robes, 
there  being,  as  they  say,  to  be  sixteen  scarlett  robes." 
Exactly  a  month  later,  however,  his  friend  Mrs.  Knepp 
told  him  that  "for  want  of  the  clothes  which  the  King 
promised  them"  the  play  would  not  be  acted  "for  a  good 
while."  Mrs.  Knepp  was  right,  for  it  was  not  put  on  till 
December  19,  1668.  Then,  however,  though  Pepys  con- 
sidered it  the  "least  diverting"  piece  he  had  ever  seen, 
he  was  impressed  by  the  fact  that  it  was  produced  in  "fine 
clothes,"  ^  so  that  the  King  seems  to  have  kept  his 
promise  after  all.  He  did  as  much  on  other  occasions,  — 
as  witness  a  document  in  the  Lord  Chamberlain's  records 
for  1664,  which  orders  the  Master  of  the  Great  Wardrobe 
to  "provide  and  deliver  to  Thomas  Killigrew  Esq.  to  the 
value  of  forty  pounds  in  silkes  for  to  cloath  the  Musick 
for  the  play  called  the  Indian  Queene."  *  Indeed,  he  fol- 
lowed or  improved  upon  still  other  precedents  set  by  his 
sires. 

In  the  old  days  the  professional  companies  that 
appeared  at  court  frequently  borrowed  costumes  and  prop- 
erties from  the  royal  Office  of  the  Revels.  When  Leices- 
ter's Men,  for  example,  came  to  play  "a  Comodie  called 
delighte"  before  Queen  Elizabeth  at  Whitehall  in  1580, 
the  Clerk  of  the  Revels  noted  that  there  was  "ymploied" 
upon  the  production  "newe,  one  cittie,  one  battlement, 
and  xij.  paire  of  gloves." '^   Henslowe,  to  be  sure,  had  to 

^  History  0/  the  Stage,  London,  1742,  p.  24.     ^  McAfee,  pp.  111-112. 
'  See  below,  pp.  191-192.  *  See  Appendix  I,  p.  289. 

*  Feuillerat,  Documents,  p.  336;  cf.  pp.  36,  321.  Cf.  T.  S.  Graves,  The 
Court  and  the  London  Theatres,  pp.  83-86. 


THEATRES  AND  COURT  165 

lend  the  Admiral's  Men  fourteen  shillings  in  1601  to  en- 
able them  to  buy  "taffty  sasenet"  for  "a  payer  of  hosse 
for  nycke  to  tvmbell  in  before  the  quen,"  ^  but  the  players 
frequently  managed  to  acquire  their  finery  in  less  expen- 
sive ways.  Thus  we  learn  from  a  letter  of  complaint 
written  in  1572  by  one  of  the  queen's  loyal  subjects  —  a 
costumer  —  that  the  Yeoman  of  the  Revels  was  then  en- 
gaged in  a  nefarious  trade,  which  must  have  been  very 
convenient  for  the  actors  as  well  as  profitable  to  himself. 
The  Yeoman,  according  to  our  informant,  "dothe 
vsuallye  lett  to  hyer  her  sayde  hyghnes  maskes  to  the 
grett  hurt  spoylle  &  discredyt  of  the  same,  to  all  sort  of 
parsons  that  wyll  hyer  the  same."  And  he  adds  that  "by 
reson  of  [this]  comen  vsage  the  glosse  &  bewtye  of  the 
same  garmentes  ys  lost,"  and  he,  the  queen's  good  sub- 
ject, having  himself  "aparell  to  lett  .  .  .  canott  so 
cheplye  lett  the  same  as  hyr  hyghnes  maskes  be  lett."  ^ 
In  the  days  of  the  Merry  Monarch  such  loans  were  nego- 
tiated quite  openly  and  with  the  cheerful  consent  of  his 
Majesty.  On  March  20,  1665,  for  instance,  the  Master  of 
the  Wardrobe  was  ordered  by  the  Lord  Chamberlain  to 
send  twelve  habits  of  several  colored  silks,  and  twenty- 
four  garlands  of  several  colored  flowers,  to  the  King's 
Theatre  "  for  his  Majesty's  service,"  and  the  same  number 
of  each  to  the  Duke  of  York's  Theatre.*  And  ten  years 
later  the  custodian  of  the  king's  private  theatre  at  White- 
hall was  instructed  to  turn  over  to  one  M.  Grabu,  the 
manager  of  a  visiting  company,  "such  of  the  scenes  re- 
mayning  in  the  theatre  at  Whitehall  as  shall  be  useful  for 
the  French  Opera  at  the  theatre  in  Bridges  street  and  the 
said  Monsieur  Grabu  to  return  them  again  safely  after 
14  days'  tyme  to  the  theatre  at  W^hitehall."  *   Like  his 

*  Diary,  I,  152.  2  Feuillerat,  p.  409. 

'  Lord  Chamberlain  s  Office  Warrants,  L.  C.  5/138,  f.  45  (Public  Record 
Office).   See  below,  Appendix  I,  p.  289. 

*  Lawrence,  Elizabethan  Playhouse,  I,  144. 


i66         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

father,  once  more,  Charles  II  also  manifested  a  lively  per- 
sonal interest  in  plays  and  players,  —  though  with  a 
difference. 

Charles  I  and  his  queen  had  more  than  once  granted 
valuable  privileges  to  actors  who  won  their  approval. 
Thus,  in  1635,  after  Floridor's  company  of  French  play- 
ers had  given  two  successful  performances  in  the  presence 
of  royalty,  the  king  commanded  (according  to  Sir  Henry 
Herbert)  "that  this  French  company  should  playe  the 
too  sermon  dales  in  the  weeke,  during  their  time  of  play- 
inge  in  Lent,^  and  in  the  house  of  Drury  Lane,  where  the 
queenes  players  usually  playe."  Sir  Henry  states,  further, 
that  the  company  "had  freely  to  themselves  the  whole 
weeke  before  the  weeke  before  Easter"  and  that  they 
"gott  two  hundred  pounds  at  least,  besides  many  rich 
clothes."  A  rather  different  aspect  of  the  king's  personal 
interest  in  the  theatre  appears  in  another  entry  of  his 
Master  of  the  Revels.  On  June  5,  1638,  Sir  Henry 
licensed  Massinger's  Royal  King  and  Loyal  Subject.  In 
his  office  book  he  set  down,  "for  ever  to  bee  remembered 
...  in  honour  of  Kinge  Charles,"  a  passage  from  the 
play,  spoken  by  Don  Pedro,  King  of  Spain : 

Monies?    We'll  raise  supplies  what  ways  we  please. 
And  force  you  to  subscribe  to  blanks,  in  which 
We'll  mulct  you  as  we  shall  think  fitt. 

No  wonder  that  King  Charles,  reading  over  the  play  at 
Newmarket,  "set  his  marke  upon  the  place  with  his 
owne  hande,  and  in  these  words:  'This  is  too  insolent, 
and  to  bee  changed.'  "  ^ 

Charles  II  had  a  broad  back,  and  rarely  took  exception 
to  what  was  said  and  done  on  the  stage.'  None  the  less, 
he  showed  in  other  ways  a  lively  interest  in  its  affairs. 
The  reader  will  recall,  for  example,  that  he  more  than 
made  good  to  D'Avenant  the  old  license  of  Charles  I's 

*  See  above,  p.  147.    ^  Malone,  III,  121,  240.    '  But  see  p.  144,  above. 


THEATRES  AND   COURT  167 

time  which  had  never  become  operative,  that  he  per- 
sonally is  said  to  have  ordered  the  union  of  the  companies 
in  1682,  and  that  it  was  his  intervention  which  restored 
Jo  Hayns  to  his  post  at  Drury  Lane  after  that  irrepres- 
sible comedian  had  lost  it  by  insubordination. ^  On 
occasion  the  king  asserted  his  authority  further,  by 
ordering  that  certain  parts  be  given  to  players  whom  he 
deemed  particularly  well  qualified  to  fill  them.  Pepys 
writes,  under  date  of  May  8,  1663,  that  The  Humorous 
Lieutenant  "hath  little  good  in  it,"  not  even  in  the  title 
part,  which  "by  the  King's  command.  Lacy  now  acts  in- 
stead of  Clun."  2  The  king's  judgment,  moreover,  was  a 
law  unto  itself,  and  his  Majesty  never  hesitated  to  dis- 
regard the  popular  verdict  as  to  the  merits  of  a  play  or 
playwright  that  happened  to  please  him.  The  Wild  Gal- 
lant^ for  instance,  —  Dryden's  first  play  (1663) — was 
admittedly  a  failure  with  the  general  public,  but  the  king 
and  Lady  Castlemaine  proved  kind,  and  the  young  author 
was  comforted  by  repeated  orders  for  its  presentation  at 
court.'  Sometimes,  indeed,  his  majesty  condescended  to 
suggest  subjects  and  models  for  plays  to  authors  who 
were  in  favor.  Thus,  he  recommended  to  Sir  Samuel 
Tuke  the  Spanish  play  which  served  as  the  basis  of  his 
Adventures  of  Five  Hours\'^  and  John  Crowne  states  in  the 
preface  of  his  masterpiece.  Sir  Courtly  Nice^  that  the 
king  often  commanded  him  to  write  comedies,  and  gave 
him  another  Spanish  play.  No  Pued  Esser^  to  adapt. 
Crowne,  of  course,  acted  upon  the  suggestion,  but  King 
Charles  died  just  before  Sir  Courtly  was  ready  for  pro- 
duction. The  tone  of  the  prologue  suggests,  however, 
that  James  II  concerned  himself  in  it  and  helped  to  make 

^  See  above,  pp.  76-77,  122-123,  no. 

2  McAfee,  p.  88. 

^  Dryden's  Preface  to  the  play,  1669,  and  the  Globe  Dry  den,  pp.  xxvi,  305- 
306. 

*  Tuke's  preface  to  the  third  edition,  1671  (Collier's  Dodsley,  XII,  9). 
Downes,  p.  22,  says  that  the  Earl  of  Bristol  was  joint  author. 


i68         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

it  "as  fortunate  a  Comedy  as  had  been  written  in  that 
age.    ' 

Before  proceeding  with  King  Charles  and  his  brother, 
we  must  pause  to  notice  more  specifically  the  official 
status  of  the  players  at  court.  It  must  be  clearly  under- 
stood that  in  Shakspere's  time,  as  well  as  after  the 
Restoration,  the  actors  enjoyed  certain  privileges  and 
emoluments  over  and  above  the  regular  fees  for  their  per- 
formances at  court.  As  early  as  1583  the  Master  of  the 
Revels  had  chosen  from  all  the  companies  then  playing 
in  London  the  twelve  leading  actors.  The  new  company 
thus  formed  was  known  as  the  Queen's  Men,  and  its 
members  were  at  once  sworn  in  as  Grooms  of  the  Cham- 
ber in  the  queen's  household.  In  this  capacity  they  drew 
annual  wages  of  £3  6s.  Sd.  each;  the  royal  wardrobe  sup- 
plied them  with  liveries;  and  their  official  position  gave 
them  valuable  privileges  and  immunities,  both  in  London 
and  when  they  were  travelling  in  the  provinces.^  The 
history  of  the  Queen's  Men,  however,  is  somewhat  ob- 
scure, and  there  is  no  record  of  their  appearance  at  court 
after  1591. 

We  have  seen,  however,  that  their  successors,  the 
King's  Men,  were  very  popular  at  the  court  of  James  I. 
They  and  their  colleagues,  Queen  Anne's  Men,  had  been 
made  Grooms  of  the  Chamber  before  1604,  when  the 
members  of  both  companies  were  employed  upon  a  very 
interesting  ceremonial  service  by  virtue  of  their  official 
position.  Among  the  documents  of  the  Lord  Chamber- 
lain's Office  for  the  year  1604  there  is  a  warrant  for  the 
payment  of  £21  12s.  to  Augustine  PhilHpps  and  John 
Hemings  "for  th'  allowaunce  of  themselves  and  tenne  of 
their  Fellowes,  his  Ma*'^  Groomes  of  the  Chamber,  and 
Players  for  waytinge  and  attendinge  on  his  Ma^'^*  serv- 
ice by  commaundemente,  vppon  the  spanishe  Embassa- 

'  Crowne,  Works,  ed.  Maidment  and  Logan,  III,  245  fF. 

*  See  Grosart's  Nashe,  I,  166;  Murray,  I,  7-8;  and  cf.  p.  170,  below. 


THEATRES  AND  COURT  169 

dor  at  Somersette  House  for  the  space  of  xviij  dayes." 
At  the  same  time  Thomas  Heywood,  Thomas  Greene, 
and  other  members  of  Queen  Anne's  company  were  ren- 
dering this  service  to  other  members  of  the  ambassador's 
party,  and  the  royal  treasury  allowed  them  £19  i6s.  for 
their  pains.  His  Excellency  probably  supplemented 
these  fees  with  substantial  gifts  of  his  own;  for,  as  Mr. 
Ernest  Law  has  shown,  the  wily  Spaniard  came  to  Eng- 
land with  some  300,000  crowns  to  help  him  to  negotiate  a 
peace,  and  gifts  were  lavishly  distributed.^ 

At  this  time  the  stipend  of  the  player-grooms  ranged 
from  about  two  and  a  half  to  five  and  a  half  pounds  a  year- 
and  there  was  an  allowance  for  livery,  every  second  year, 
of  "foure  yardes  .  .  .  Bastard  Scarlet  and  a  quater  of  a 
yard  of  crimson  velvet,"  —  the  whole  worth  about  six 
pounds,  —  with  additional  grants  of  four  and  a  half 
yards  of  crimson  or  black  cloth,  respectively,  when  a 
monarch  was  crowned  or  buried.^  There  was,  further,  a 
regular  and  substantial  allowance  of  diet,  light,  and  fuel. 
One  loaf,  one  manchet,  one  gallon  of  ale,  one  mess  of 
meat  daily,  one  pound  of  white  lights,  and  eight  fagots 
were  among  the  items  to  which  they  were  entitled,  though 
Ben  Jonson  in  The  Masque  of  Augurs  (1622)  suggests  that 
some  of  these  good  things  were  now  and  then  embezzled 
by  the  rascally  grooms  of  the  revels.'* 

No  thievish  servant,  however,  could  rob  them  of  a 
more  valuable  privilege  attached  to  their  official  position, 
for  as  grooms  of  the  chamber  the  players  were  exempt 
from  "being  impressed,  arrested,  or  otherwise  molested" 
while  engaged  in  their  business.  And  this,  as  a  passage  in 
Histrio-Masiix  suggests,  was  no  mean  privilege.    In  the 

^  See  his  valuable  little  book,  Shakespeare  as  a  Groom  of  the  Chamber,  pp. 
21  ff. 

*  Sullivan,  Court  Masques  oj  James  I,  pp.  251-254. 

*  New  Shakspere  Society  Transactions,  1877-79,  Appendix,  p.  16;  Malone, 
III,  60-61. 

*  Cf.  Law,  pp.  44-45. 


I70         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

course  of  that  play  a  company  of  strollers  is  just  at  the 
point  of  "enacting,"  when  the  press-gang  pounces  upon 
them.  "Press-money,  press-money?"  says  one  of  the 
strollers,  "Alas,  sir,  press  me?  I  am  no  fit  actor  for  the 
action!"  But  the  recruiting  officer  insists.  "Text-bills," 
says  he,  "must  now  be  turned  to  iron-bills,"  and  Belch, 
the  poor  player,  must  needs  suit  the  action  to  the  word. 
Our  histrionic  grooms  of  the  chamber  —  to  whose  num- 
ber Prince  Henry's  Men,  Prince  Charles's,  and  the  Lady 
Elizabeth's  had  been  added  not  long  after  James  I's  ac- 
cession —  escaped  this  trial.  When  they  went  on  tour  in 
the  provinces,  they  carried  with  them  their  royal  licenses, 
which  ordered  that  they  be  "  treated  and  entertained  with 
due  respect  and  curtesie"  by  all  his  majesty's  loving  and 
loyal  servants;  and  in  some  cases  they  had  additional 
writs  which  specifically  commanded  the  recruiting  officers 
not  to  molest  them.^ 

There  remains  in  the  records  of  the  Lord  Chamber- 
lain's Office  for  the  early  years  of  the  Restoration  much 
interesting  material  that  has  not  thus  far  found  its  way 
into  print.  Some  of  this  material  appears  in  Appendix  L* 
It  shows,  among  other  things,  that  Charles  II  continued 
the  old  allowance  of  livery,  to  the  Duke's  players  as  well 
as  to  his  own.  "Each  of  them,"  —  so  reads  a  warrant 
dated  July  29,  1661,  —  had  his  "foure  yards  of  Bastard 
Scarlett  for  a  Cloake  .  .  .  and  a  quarter  of  a  yard  of 
Crimson  Velvett  for  the  Cape  of  itt,  being  the  usuall  al- 
lowance of  every  second  yeare,  to  comence  at  October 
last  past."  The  king,  moreover,  was  a  generous  and  a 
gallant  king.  No  squeaking  Cleopatras  boy'd  the  great- 
ness of  the  tragedy  queens  and  fine  ladies  of  comedy  who 
disported  themselves  on  the  boards  of  his  theatre,  for 
Nell  Gwynn  and  her  sprightly  sisters  had  come  into  their 

1  Cf.  Mrs.  Stopes,  Burbage  and  Shakespeare's  Stage,  pp.  259-260;  Shake- 
speare Jahrbuchy  XLVI,  103-104. 

2  Pp.  287  ff.,  below. 


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THEATRES  AND  COURT  171 

own.^  But  Charles  drew  no  artificial  distinctions  be- 
tween persons.  He  loved  all  the  players,  and  he  loved  to 
clothe  merit  in  its  proper  habilaments.  Had  he  been  an 
ordinary  mortal,  he  might  have  hesitated,  but,  being 
every  inch  a  king,  he  paid  his  homage  to  the  ladies  by 
granting  them  just  as  much  and  just  the  same  cloth  and 
trimmings  as  the  men  had  had  for  generations  past.  I 
find  that  on  July  22,  1667,  there  was  issued  to  the  Master 
of  the  Wardrobe  "a  warrant  to  provide  and  deliver  to 
Mrs.  Marshall,  Mrs.  Rutter,  Mrs.  Nop,  Ellen  Gwyn, 
Francis,  Elizabeth,  and  Jane  Davenport,  women  come- 
dians in  his  Majesty's  Theatre  Royal,  unto  each  of  them 
four  yards  of  bastard  scarlet  and  one  quarter  of  a  yard  of 
crimson  velvet  for  their  liveries  for  the  year  1668,  it  being 
allowed  unto  them  every  second  year,  to  commence  from 
the  30th  of  May,  1666."  I  imagine,  too,  that  the  ladies 
may  have  had  their  share  of  the  generous  provision  made 
for  certain  other  "Necessaries  for  y®  Comedians,"  as  indi- 
cated by  the  following  warrant,  under  date  of  October  31, 
1666.  Certainly  there  would  seem  to  have  been  enough 
for  all  concerned.  "These  are  to  signify  unto  you  his 
Majesty's  pleasure  that  you  provide  and  deliver  .  .  . 
these  particulars  for  his  Majesty's  Comedians  upon  the 
night  they  act  at  court:  viz.,  twelve  quarts  of  sack, 
twelve  quarts  of  claret,  four  and  twenty  torches,  eight 
gallons  of  beer,  four  baskets  of  coal,  six  dishes  of  meal, 
twelve  loaves  of  white  bread  and  twelve  loaves  of  brown 
bread,  four  pounds  of  tallow  candles,  twelve  white 
dishes  to  drink  in,  and  two  bombards  to  fetch  beer."  2 

We  may  note  in  passing  that  the  players'  liveries  and 
other  badges  of  their  ancient  and  more  or  less  honorable 
servitude  apparently  continued  theirs  for  the  asking  long 
after  the  curtain  had  dropped  upon  Charles  II.    In  the 

^  Kynaston  and  one  or  two  other  men  continued  to  play  female  r6les  for  a 
while,  but  not  for  long. 

*  See  Appendix,  I,  pp.  a88,  290. 


172         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

Memoirs  of  the  Present  Countess  of  Derby  ^  it  is  stated  that 
"  the  economy  which  took  place  under  the  administration 
of  Sir  Robert  Walpole  ^  deprived  the  Players  of  their 
annual  suit,  not,  however  without  much  grumbling  on 
their  part."  The  players  had  a  long  memory.  So  late  as 
1773,  Samuel  Foote,  in  the  address  to  the  audience  pref- 
atory to  his  Handsome  Housemaid  or  Piety  in  Pattens^ 
alludes  in  gentle  mock-heroics  to  the  fact  that  in  accept- 
ing a  royal  patent  for  his  summer  theatre,  the  Haymar- 
ket,  he  had  become  the  king's  man.  "As  I  have  the 
honour,"  says  he,  "during  the  summer  months,  of  ap- 
pearing before  you  decorated  with  the  royal  livery,  my 
present  employment  [that  is  to  say,  his  wire-pulling  in 
"the  pure  and  primitive  puppet-show"]  may  to  some 
seem  ill-suited  to  the  dignity  of  that  situation."  ^  Again, 
the  players'  immunity  from  arrest  continued  to  serve 
them  for  decades  after  the  Restoration.  In  1696  a  bailiff 
arrested  one  of  the  King's  Men,  an  actor  named  Free- 
man, of  Lincoln's  Inn  Fields.  When  the  case  was  brought 
to  the  Lord  Chamberlain's  attention,  the  bailiff  himself 
was  arrested  for  contempt,  and  was  not  released  until  he 
had  made  his  humble  submission.'* 

To  return  for  a  moment  to  a  point  made  earlier  in  this 
chapter:  the  players'  attendance  upon  the  Spanish  am- 
bassador is  the  only  case  of  the  sort  in  pre-Restoration 
times  vouched  for  by  documentary  evidence,  but  they 
may  well  have  been  called  upon  again.  To  be  sure,  not 
many  occasions  of  state  were  made  so  much  of  as  that 
one,  but  the  players  might  conceivably  have  been  em- 
ployed in  connection  with  the  King  of  Denmark's  visit  to 
England  in  1606,  or  in  16 13,  when  the  court  celebrated 
the  marriage  of  the  Princess  Elizabeth  to  the  County 

*  2d  ed.,  London,  [1797,]  p.  27,  note. 

*  Ca.  171 5-1742.  On  Walpole  and  the  stage  see  Percival,  Political  Ballads y 
1916,  pp.  xix-xxvii. 

^  Oulton,  I,  21.     See  above,  p.  136. 

*  Fitzgerald,   I,  175. 


THEATRES  AND  COURT  173 

Palatine.  In  one  capacity  or  another,  certainly,  the  serv- 
ices of  the  players  continued  to  be  in  much  demand  in 
connection  with  the  business  as  well  as  the  pleasure  of  the 
court,  —  so  much  so  that  Prynne  in  1633  felt  called  upon 
to  deny  categorically  and  at  considerable  length  the  view 
that  plays  and  players  are  "necessary  in  a  Common- 
weale  ...  for  the  solemne  entertainment  and  recreation 
of  forraigne  Embassadours,  States  and  Princes."  ^ 

Prynne  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding,  they  con- 
tinued to  be  so  used  for  many  a  long  year  after,  though 
not  without  a  certain  difference  which  will  appear  in  a 
moment.  Tom  Davies,  Garrick's  biographer,  tells  us  that 
in  1746,  when  Garrick  had  just  returned  from  a  successful 
season  in  Ireland,  "Frederick,  Prince  of  Wales,  com- 
manded three  plays  for  the  entertainment  of  his  brother- 
in-law,  the  Prince  of  Hesse,  two  of  which  were  Othello  and 
The  Stratagem^  These  plays  were  presented  by  the 
Covent  Garden  company,  with  which  Garrick  was  then 
acting;  but  at  the  same  time,  according  to  a  newspaper 
advertisement  of  June  3,  1746,  the  proprietor  of  Drury 
Lane  ordered  some  of  his  principal  performers  to  post- 
pone their  summer  vacations,  that  they  might  also  "per- 
form a  few  pieces  for  the  entertainment  of  the  Prince  of 
Hesse."  -  It  is  worth  observing  here  that  these  per- 
formances were  not  given  at  the  court  itself,  but  in  the 
playhouses.  This  was  also  the  case  when,  in  October, 
1768,  Jane  Shore  was  acted  "by  particular  desire  —  be- 
fore the  King  of  Denmark."  The  scene  of  this  perform- 
ance was  Covent  Garden  Theatre.  There,  as  Genest  has 
it,^  "Mrs.  Bellamy  acted  Alicia,  and,  being  displeased 
with  the  King  for  falling  asleep,  she  drew  near  his  box 
and,  with  a  most  violent  exertion  of  voice,  which  the.  part 
permitted  of,  cried  out  'Oh!  thou  false  Lord!'  —  thus, 
like  Macbeth,  she  murdered  sleep,  and  revenged  herself 

^  Histrio-Mastix,  pp.  733  fF.  ^  Genest,  V,  237. 

'  Life  oj  Garrick,  I,  126;  Genest,  IV,  186,  195-196. 


174         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

on  his  Majesty,  who  declared  he  would  not  be  married  to 
a  woman  with  such  a  voice  for  the  world." 

The  point  for  us  to  notice,  however,  is  that  the  eight- 
eenth century  had  brought  an  important  change  in  the 
relations  between  the  court  and  the  theatres.  Concisely 
stated,  it  amounts  to  this:  after  the  turn  of  the  century 
the  court  came  to  the  theatre,  whereas  formerly  the 
players  had  come  to  the  court.  The  change,  like  most 
real  changes,  was  made  gradually.  The  transition  came 
during  the  reign  of  Charles  II  and  that  of  his  brother. 
Both  of  these  monarchs  often  had  the  players  in  their 
private  theatres  at  court,  but  they  also  attended  the  pub- 
lic theatres  more  and  more.  Their  successors  at  times  in- 
dulged themselves  and  their  court  in  a  revival  of  the 
ancient  splendor;  occasionally,  as  of  old,  Mohammed 
came  to  the  mountain,  —  but  as  a  rule  the  process  was 
reversed.^  The  reason  for  this  is  obvious.  After  the 
Restoration  the  new  scenic  demands  and  the  general  ex- 
travagance of  production  required  so  great  an  outlay  of 
money  and  technical  skill  that  even  the  court  could  not 
afford  to  pay  the  price,  so  that  in  the  course  of  time  it  was 
forced  to  go  to  the  public  theatre  for  its  entertainment. 

But  it  did  not  bring  itself  to  this  change  suddenly.  For 
a  long  time  Charles  II  and  James  II  emulated  the  ex- 
ample of  their  predecessors  to  the  best  of  their  ability  and 
to  the  limit  of  their  exchequer.  James  I  and  his  son  had 
used  their  histrionic  grooms  of  the  chamber,  not  only  to 
entertain  foreign  ambassadors  but  also,  on  occasion,  "to 
ease  the  anguish  of  a  torturing  hour"  during  their  own 
royal  progresses.  Thus,  King  James  saw  three  plays 
while  journeying  to  Scotland  in  1617,  and  Charles  paid 
"the  Prince's  players"  £100  in  1634  "for  their  attend- 
ance abroad  during  the  progress  of  the  court."  ^   John 

1  See  below,  pp.  177-180. 

2  Ma/one  Society  Co/lections,  I,  376;  Chalmers,  Apology,  p.  507;  Shake- 
speare Jahrbuch,  XLVI,  97;  Nichols,  Progresses  oj  James  I,  III,  253  fF. 


THEATRES  AND  COURT  175 

Downes,  prompter  of  the  Duke's  Men,  tells  of  a  similar 
occasion  a  generation  later.  "Our  Company,"  he  writes, 
"were  Commanded  to  Dover,  in  May,  1670.  The  King 
with  all  his  Court,  meeting  his  sister,  the  Dutchess  of  Or- 
leans there."  And  there  a  play  entitled  Sir  Solomon 
Single  won  particular  favor  even  from  "Madam  the 
Dutchess,"  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  actors  inhos- 
pitably loaded  it  with  special  business  "on  purpose," 
says  Downes,^  "to  ape  the  French,"  —  the  Duke  of  Mon- 
mouth genially  giving  one  of  the  players  his  own  sword 
and  belt  to  help  the  good  work  along.  It  is  reported  also 
that  on  another  occasion,  when  the  diversions  of  Tun- 
bridge  Wells  proved  boresome  to  Charles  II's  queen,  her 
Majesty  sent  for  a  company  of  comedians  to  save  the 
situation;  and  the  Duke  of  York,  later  James  II,  is  known 
to  have  had  his  players  with  him  when  he  kept  court  at 
Holyrood  House  in  Edinburgh. ^  The  records  show,  fur- 
ther, that  Charles  II  in  1684  paid  £45  to  certain  French 
players  for  "attending  his  Majestic  at  Windsor  and 
Winchester  and  returning  to  London."  ' 

Like  their  predecessors,  once  more,  the  last  two  Stuart 
kings  attended  the  "pubHck  Acts"  at  Oxford,  —  "at 
which,"  according  to  Colley  Cibber,  "the  Players,  as 
usual,  assisted."  Cibber  adds  that  "these  Academical 
Jubilees  have  usually  been  look'd  upon  as  a  kind  of  con- 
gratulatory Compliment  to  the  Accession  of  every  new 
Prince  to  the  Throne."  ^  When  James  I  visited  Oxford  in 
1605,  the  Lord  Treasurer  sent  £20  and  much  venison 
"to  the  Disputers  and  Actors."^  These  early  actors 
were  clearly  amateurs;  but  we  know  that  the  Thespians 
of  the  Public  Acts  in  the  days  of  Charles  II  and  James  II 

^  Roscius  Anglkanus,  p.  29. 

^  Memoires  du  Comte  de  Grammont,  1713  (ed.  1792,  p.  259);  Percy  Anec- 
dotes, XXVII,  p.  148. 
3  Lawrence,  I,  151. 
^  Apology,  II,  133-134. 
^  Nichols,  Progresses,  I,  559. 


176         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

were  none  other  than  the  players  of  the  patent  houses, 
and  that  Dryden  wrote  a  number  of  prologues  for  these 
occasions.  Colley  Cibber  states  that  these  jubilee  plays 
were  well  patronized  by  the  academic  public.  When  he 
was  a  "hired  actor"  in  King  WiUiam's  time,  his  company 
played  twice  a  day  on  these  Oxford  visits,  and  Colley  re- 
ceived double  pay.  When  he  came  back  as  full-fledged 
actor-manager  in  171 2,  he  and  his  colleagues  played  but 
once  a  day,  but  so  large  and  generous  were  their  audiences 
that  in  a  visit  of  twenty-one  days  each  of  the  patentees 
cleared  £150,  though  they  allowed  their  players  double 
pay  and  contributed  £50  towards  the  repair  of  St. 
Mary's  Church.^ 

These  excursions  were  profitable  to  the  actors  without 
being  a  heavy  burden  to  the  king,  —  at  least  not  so  far  as 
the  players'  pay  was  concerned.  Charles  II  and  his 
brother  certainly  spent  far  greater  sums  for  entertain- 
ment provided  them  in  the  public  theatres  of  London,  or 
in  their  private  theatres  at  Hampton  Court,  Windsor, 
or  Whitehall.  Here  it  was  that  Pepys  frequently  man- 
aged to  smuggle  himself  in.  On  December  28,  1666,  for 
instance,  he  writes:  "To  White  Hall,  and  got  my  Lord 
Bellases  to  get  me  into  the  playhouse;  and  there  .  .  . 
saw  Henry  the  Fifth  well  done  by  the  Duke's  people." 
And  again,  on  October  2,  1662:  "At  night,  .  .  .  hearing 
that  there  was  a  play  at  the  Cockpit"  in  Whitehall 
Palace,  "I  do  go  thither,  and  by  very  great  fortune  did 
follow  four  or  five  gentlemen  who  were  carried  to  a  little 
private  door  in  the  wall,  and  so  crept  through  a  narrow 
place  and  come  into  one  of  the  boxes  next  the  King's."  ^ 
Here  too,  doubtless,  many  another  loyal  subject  en- 
joyed gratis  the  "hospitable  grandeur"  of  the  court. 
But,  as  I  have  already  suggested,  with  the  general  in- 
crease in  lavish  expenditure  these  entertainments  had 
1  Apology,  II,  135-136, 139- 

*  Cf.  Lowe,  Bettertorty  pp.  65-67;  McAfee,  pp.  292-294. 


THEATRES  AND  COURT  177 

come  to  be  a  growing  drain  upon  the  king's  empty  purse. 
We  saw  that  in  Charles  I's  time  the  reward  for  a  play  at 
court  which  did  not  interfere  with  the  actors'  public  en- 
gagements was  ten  pounds.  Under  the  same  conditions 
the  fee  was  doubled  in  the  next  reign, ^  and  the  general  ex- 
pense and  upkeep  of  the  private  royal  theatres  must  have 
increased  proportionately.  Comparatively  few  warrants 
for  paying  the  actors  have  survived,  but  these  few  total 
thousands  of  pounds. ^  We  have  seen  that  the  court  took 
its  time  about  paying,  and  that  long  before  the  close  of 
the  seventeenth  century  the  managers  were  allowed  to 
admit  the  public  to  the  royal  cockpits  and  to  charge 
admission. 

Under  the  circumstances  it  is  not  surprising  that  one 
now  hears  less  of  the  players  at  court,  and  more  of  the 
court  at  the  theatres.  I  have  found  but  two  notices  of 
professional  performances  actually  given  at  court  after 
James  II's  time,  —  one  in  Downes,  and  the  other,  an  im- 
portant bit,  in  Cibber;  and  both  indicate  that  the  day  of 
court  performances  was  fast  passing  away.  Downes 
states  that  "from  Candlemas  1704,  to  the  23d  of  April 
1706"  four  plays  only  were  "commanded  to  be  Acted  at 
Court  of  St.  James's."  Three  of  these  were  done  by  Bet- 
terton's  company,  and  the  fourth,  a  special  performance 
in  honor  of  the  Queen's  birthday,  by  the  actors  of  both 
houses,  with  the  aid  of  all  "the  best  Singers  and  Dancers, 
Foreign  and  English."  ^  But  court  performances  of  this 
sort  had  come  to  be  comparatively  rare  by  Queen  Anne's 
time.  That  this  is  so,  is  proved  conclusively  by  what  we 
hear  on  the  subject  from  Cibber,  who  knew  whereof  he 
spoke.    Cibber  published  his  Apology  in  1739.    In  the 

^  See  below,  p.  179,  n.  3. 

2  See  above,  p.  161.  Among  the  other  recorded  payments  there  are  one  of 
£560  to  Killigrew  and  £450  to  D'Avenant  in  1667;  '^wo  of  £300  and  £200, 
respectively,  to  French  companies  in  1661  and  1688  (Chalmers,  Apology^ 
p.  530,  note;  Lawrence,  I,  140,  151). 

^  Roscius  Anglicanus,  pp.  46-47. 


178         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

sixteenth  chapter  of  that  delightful  work  he  gives  an 
account  of  certain  performances  by  the  Drury  Lane 
company  at  Hampton  Court  in  September,  171 8,  when 
the  Cibber-Wilks-Booth  management  of  old  Drury  was 
at  its  height.  Our  apologist's  record  is  accompanied  by  a 
valuable  retrospect  on  the  general  subject  of  court  per- 
formances in  Restoration  times  and  the  early  eighteenth 
century,  and  these  remarks  of  his  fit  in  so  well  where  our 
earlier  information  stops  that  I  shall  quote  them  at  some 
length.^ 

Gibber  begins  by  speaking  of  "the  Theatre  which  was 
order'd  by  his  late  Majesty,"  King  George  I,  "to  be 
erected  in  the  Great  old  Hall  at  Hampton-Court,"  — 
the  same  hall,  be  it  noted,  in  which  Shakspere  and  his 
fellows  had  played  before  James  I  and  King  Christian  of 
Denmark  in  August,  1606.2  Then  follows  a  statement  as 
to  the  number  of  plays  planned  for  and  actually  given  in 
171 8,  with  something  of  a  lament  for  the  glory  that  had 
departed.  The  plans  had  been  ambitious: 

Plays  were  Intended  to  have  been  acted  twice  a  Week  dur- 
ing the  Summer-Season.  But  before  the  Theatre  could  be 
finish'd,  above  half  the  Month  of  September  being  elapsed, 
there  were  but  seven  Plays  acted  before  the  Court  returned  to 
London.  This  throwing  open  a  Theatre  in  a  Royal  Palace 
seem'd  to  be  reviving  the  old  English  hospitable  Grandeur, 
where  the  lowest  Rank  of  neighboring  Subjects  might  make 
themselves  merry  at  Court  without  being  laugh'd  at  them- 
selves. In  former  Reigns,  Theatrical  Entertainments  at  the 
Royal  Palaces  had  been  perform'd  at  vast  Expence,  as  ap- 
pears by  the  Description  of  the  Decorations  in  several  oi  Ben 
Johnson  s  Masques  in  King  James  and  Charles  the  First's 
Time.  .  .  .  But  when  our  Civil  Wars  ended  in  the  Decad- 
ence of  Monarchy,  it  was  then  an  Honour  to  the  Stage  to  have 
fallen  with  it:  Yet  after  the  Restoration  of  Charles  II.  some 
faint  Attempts  were  made  to  revive  these  Theatrical  Spec- 

1  Apology,  II,  208  ff. 

'  Cf.  Ernest  Law,  The  Haunted  Gallery^  Hampton  Court,  p.  23. 


THEATRES  AND  COURT  179 

tacles  at  Court;  but  I  have  met  with  no  Account  of  above 
one  Masque  acted  there  by  the  Nobility;  which  was  that  of 
Calisto,  written  by  Crown^  the  Author  of  Sir  Courtly  Nice} 

Then  follows  the  passage  already  quoted,  —  concerning 
the  king's  comedians  at  Windsor  and  his  debt  of  £1,500 
for  plays  commanded,  and  telling  how  he  permitted  the 
managers  to  admit  —  and  collect  from  —  the  general 
public.2  "And  yet,"  adds  the  moral  Colley,  "it  was  the 
general  Complaint,  in  that  Prince's  Reign,  that  he  paid 
too  much  Ready-money  for  his  Pleasures:  But  these  as- 
sertions I  only  give  as  I  received  them,  without  being 
answerable  for  their  Reality."  Cibber  next  digresses,  in 
his  best  style,  upon  Nell  Gwynn,  and  then,  after  enlarg- 
ing upon  the  difference  in  tone  between  playhouse  per- 
formances and  those  at  court  —  a  difference  which  he 
ascribes  primarily  to  the  audience  —  he  explains  what 
the  Hampton  Court  performances  of  171 8  cost  the  man- 
agers and  how  they  were  paid  for  their  pains: 

Though  the  stated  Fee  for  a  Play  acted  at  Whitehall  had 
been  formerly  but  Twenty  Pounds;  ^  yet,  as  that  hinder'd  not 
the  Company's  acting  on  the  same  day  at  the  Publick  The- 
atre, that  Sum  was  almost  all  clear  Profits  to  them:  But  this 
Circumstance  not  being  practicable  when  they  were  com- 
manded to  Hampton-Court,'^  a  new  and  extraordinary  Charge 
was  unavoidable:  The  Menagers,  therefore,  not  to  inflame  it, 
desired  no  Consideration  for  their  own  Labour,  farther  than 
the  Honour  of  being  employ'd  in  his  Majesty's  Commands,^ 

1  But  see  pp.  i84fF.,  below,  on  plays  acted  at  court  by  noble  amateurs. 

*  See  above,  p.  i6i. 

^  Cibber  almost  invariably  refers  only  to  post-Restoration  days.  I  take 
it,  therefore,  that  he  has  in  mind  here  the  fee  for  court  performances  in  the 
time  of  Charles  II.  It  had  been  £io  under  the  same  circumstances  before  the 
closing  of  the  theatres.  See  above,  pp.  177,  159. 

*  Hampton  Court  may  be  reached  by  train  from  London  to-day  in  less 
than  an  hour,  but  travel  was  less  expeditious  in  Gibber's  time. 

^  This  honor,  of  course,  they  exploited  in  their  advertising.  Lowe  {Apol- 
ogy, II,  209,  note  i)  quotes  from  the  playbill  of  September  24,  171 8,  which 
announces  "the  same  Entertainments  that  were  performed  yesterday  before 
his  Majesty  at  Hampton  Court." 


i8o         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

and,  if  the  other  Actors  might  be  allow'd  each  their  Day's 
Pay  and  travelling  Charges,  they  should  hold  themselves 
ready  to  act  any  Play  there  at  a  Day's  Warning:  And  that 
the  Trouble  might  be  less  by  being  divided,  the  Lord-Cham- 
berlain was  pleas'd  to  let  us  know  that  the  Household-Musick, 
the  Wax  Lights,  and  a  Chaise-Marine  to  carry  our  moving 
Wardrobe  to  every  different  Play,  should  be  under  the 
Charge  of  the  proper  Officers.  Notwithstanding  these  Assist- 
ances, the  Expense  of  every  Play  amounted  to  Fifty  Pounds. 

He  adds  that  the  king  graciously  paid  the  entire  cost  of 
the  seven  performances  and  was  pleased  to  add  £200  as 
a  present  to  the  managers.^  Obviously,  however,  the 
trouble  and  expense  involved  in  these  entertainments, 
made  against  their  repetition.  And  so  Gibber's  closing 
remark  on  this  subject,  which  concerns  a  play  given  in 
1 73 1  in  honor  of  a  duke  who  later  became  Emperor,  is 
only  what  one  might  expect.  Since  the  event  of  171 8,  says 
Gibber,  "there  has  been  but  one  Play  given  at  Hampton- 
Gourt,  which  was  for  the  Entertainment  of  the  Duke  of 
Lorrain;  and  for  which  his  present  Majesty  ^  was  pleased 
to  order  us  a  Hundred  Pounds."  We  shall  see  presently 
that  many  another  theatrical  performance  was  given  in 
later  times  in  this  or  that  ducal  or  princely  establishment, 
but  the  actors  were  noble  amateurs.  After  the  early 
decades  of  the  eighteenth  century,  king  and  court  went 
to  the  public  playhouses  when  they  wished  to  see  the 
professional  actors. 

Of  course,  they  had  frequently  done  that  very  thing 
ever  since  the  Restoration.  The  invaluable  Pepys,  tireless 
playgoer  that  he  was,  saw  the  theatre  in  all  its  moods. 
He  was  there  when  the  audience  was  thin,  and  it  was 
"pretty  to  see  how  Nell  cursed,  for  having  so  few  people 
in  the  pit,"  and  again  when  the  theatre  was  "  infinite  full " 

*  The  warrant  (November  15,  1718)  calls  for  £374  is.  8d.,  plus  the  £200 
(Lowe's  note,  II,  219). 

2  George  II.  See  Ernest  Law,  History  oj  Hampton  Court  Palace,  III,  240. 


THEATRES  AND   COURT  i8i 

and  one  had  to  come  hours  ahead  of  time  to  get  in :  when 
a  new  play  was  to  be  produced  or  when  "  the  King  was 
there."  On  such  occasions  all  the  world  of  fashion  and  its 
wife  (or  other  ladies)  attended,  and  the  theatres  profited 
accordingly,  though  the  disgruntled  Pepys  sometimes 
had  to  go  from  one  house  to  the  other  before  he  could 
manage  to  gain  admission.^  His  majesty,  indeed,  could 
do  much  to  establish  the  popularity  of  any  play  simply  by 
coming  to  see  it,  and  Steele  tells  us  that  Charles  II,  for 
one,  good-naturedly  made  the  most  of  his  opportunities 
in  this  respect.  He  did  Tom  D'Urfey  a  good  turn,  for 
example,  by  honoring  with  his  presence  three  of  the  first 
five  nights  of  that  author's  comedy,  A  Fond  Husband 
(1676). 2  Later  monarchs  proved  equally  kind  when  the 
spirit  moved  them,  for  Frederick  Reynolds  writes  that 
his  comedy,  The  Dramatist  —  which  was  produced  at 
Covent  Garden  more  than  a  hundred  years  after  D'Urfey's 
time  —  was  "completely  established  in  public  favour" 
when  King  George  III  commanded  it  for  his  first  visit  to 
the  theatre  after  an  illness  (in  1789).  In  this  case  the 
Prince  of  Wales  lent  a  hand,  for  he  "condescended  to 
honour  the  Theatre  with  his  presence"  shortly  after  his 
father.^ 

In  short,  the  members  of  the  royal  family  had  it  in  their 
power  to  assist,  in  one  sense  or  another,  and  they  fre- 
quently did  so  in  substantial  fashion.  We  hear,  for  ex- 
ample, that  Queen  Caroline,  wife  of  George  I,  personally 
sold  tickets  in  her  own  drawing-room  for  the  benefit  of  an 
obscure  playwright  named  Mottley,  the  Prince  of  Wales 
adding  a  handsome  sum  to  his  mother's  collection.'* 
Again,  in  March,  1735,  when  the  actor  Ryan's  benefit 
came  on,  a  contemporary  newspaper^  reports  that  the 

1  May  28,  1663;  September  25  and  October  5,  1667. 

2  Guardian^  No.  82  (cf.  Nos.  29,  67;  Tatler,  Nos.  i,  11,  43);  Genest,  II, 
516-517. 

^  Lije  and  Times,  11,  46-47. 

*  Doran,  I,  378.  *  Quoted  by  Genest,  III,  464. 


i82         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

Prince  sent  him  ten  guineas  "and  would  have  attended 
the  benefit  if  he  had  not  been  pre-engaged."  Thackeray, 
who  knew  his  eighteenth  century  and  its  theatre,  affords 
an  interesting  commentary  upon  the  value  of  the  presence 
of  royalty.  Mr.  George  Warrington  of  Virginia  invited 
Lord  Bute  to  attend  the  first  performance  of  Pocahontas^ 
a  play  of  his,  hoping  also  for  the  honor  of  the  royal  pres- 
ence. But  Mr.  Warrington  was  out  of  favor,  and  Lord 
Bute  properly  made  him  understand  this  by  a  categorical 
refusal,  both  for  himself  and  for  the  king.  And  so  Mr. 
Warrington's  play  failed,  though  not  for  this  reason 
alone.^  At  all  events,  John  O'Keeffe  (a  rather  more 
successful  playwright  than  Thackeray's  hero)  merely 
stated  a  plain  fact  in  setting  forth  that  "command 
nights  both  in  England  and  Ireland  were  of  the  utmost 
importance  to  the  theatre;  for  the  royal  or  vice-royal 
presence  fills  the  boxes,  and  all  other  parts  must  then 
be  full."  2  From  Charles  II's  time  straight  through  to 
the  nineteenth  century,  command-night  plays — always 
specially  advertised  in  the  bills  and  produced  with  all 
the  splendor  the  manager's  resources  could  provide  — 
proved  an  unfailing  attraction.  Pepys  at  times  could 
not  get  in  at  all,  and  later  playgoers  who  did  get  in 
sometimes  fared  worse.  The  seasons  of  1792  and  1794, 
for  example,  brought  disastrous  accidents  in  conse- 
quence of  terrific  overcrowding  at  performances  attended 
by  their  majesties,  a  number  of  people  being  crushed  to 
death.' 

The  British  Museum  collection  of  the  playbills  of 
Covent  Garden  Theatre  for  the  season  1 789-1 790  also 
furnishes  good  evidence  of  the  popularity  of  "command 

*  The  Virginians^  Chapters  79-80;  cf.  Chapter  77. 

*  Recollections,  I,  290. 

'  Annual  Register  for  1792,  Chronicle,  p.  i;  for  1794  (2d  ed.),  Chronicle, 
pp.  5-6;  Oulton,  II,  134.  Horace  Walpole  describes  the  crowds  that  besieged 
Covent  Garden  when  the  Prince  of  Brunswick  was  to  be  present  in  1764 
{Letters,  ed.  Toynbee,  V,  436). 


tv ;•,;,,..  b\  Mr.  MILW  ARD, 

C^;;//:!/^~bf  Mr.(iUI>:, 
■■A(7ia  by  M«.  T  H ITE.  M  O  K  D. 
VitliEntcrmtnmenrs  of  Dancing  iJpankuJai- 
liv  Monf.  DexoYHR,  anJ3!3dera.  RoLA-N't;. 

«",■-.  f-';/    ',:J  fri-m  rtsx.-i  •.-::•■  !■■  ■.';;.V.'^r,'.'-f.-i'  .-J.'  >  s-  -^'^^  '"J"^'"  "•'■ 
jf-^r'l-:  -.U'c:s;  P,':h!,:i  T:ii^!,  ^-hxh  ;;yf  !.i 
Ba  -i--  -1^  ^c^p"''  Ji'  ''■■  J'^ii^^-'-'^^  PcPcVi  3iw  , 
Thrt-i-     I-'mI-  G-il.  i';.     rpvi- Gai;  ? -. 

"  Vt  ri  cr  j-rcw-i  o%c'  en  cicm  <^c'v  {ht  Stasc  i  i-i.i  rh'^ Ucks  ,ui  <:•.'.•;  i!  U: 
fci.ii  th^.Ti  by  rivec  c'  tlori. 

-To  hcda  c:<aa7ai:Six  ^-^O^- '^''■■'^^  ^""'^  VUcoina. 

"aT^/i?  ft^U  ^^i~'=^-  r"-rrnr..'.  The  C  O  >,I  M  f  T  T  E  E- 


THEATRES  AND   COURT  183 

nights."  Upon  the  back  of  these  bills  the  manager  or  his 
treasurer  entered  the  daily  receipts,  which,  on  the  two 
command  nights  of  the  season  were  more  than  twice  as 
large  as  usual.'  For  November  4,  171 6,  says  Chetwood,^ 
"the  Managers  had  an  Order  from  the  Lord  Chamber- 
lain, to  revive  the  Play  of  Tamerlane^  .  .  .  which  was 
got  up  with  the  utmost  Magnificence."  Under  the  cir- 
cum.stances  they  and  their  successors  could  well  afford 
the  trouble  and  probably  even  the  magnificence.  And 
the  profits  of  these  command  nights  probably  compen- 
sated them  amply  for  certain  others  when  the  box-office 
was  not  overworked,  for  during  successive  coronation 
festivals  down  to  the  time  of  Queen  Victoria  the  royal 
command  went  forth  to  admit  the  public  to  the  theatres 
gratis.^ 

There  were  still  other  links  between  the  court  and  the 
theatres  during  the  two  centuries  with  which  we  are  con- 
cerned. Thus  there  is  a  considerable  body  of  evidence  to 
show  that  not  only  the  companies  as  such,  but  also  many 
prominent  individual  players,  were  employed  from  time 
to  time  to  supervise  amateur  performances,  or  to  take 
part  in  them.  In  Shakspere's  day  the  City  of  London 
was,  as  a  rule,  none  too  friendly  to  the  players,  and  yet  in 
1 610  it  employed  two  of  his  colleagues,  John  Rice  and 
Richard  Burbage,  to  take  part  in  the  city  pageant  in 
honor  of  the  installation  of  the  Prince  of  Wales.  To  pay 
them  for  their  trouble,  the  city  fathers  allowed  the  actors 
to  retain  the  "robes  and  other  furniture,"  valued  at 
£17  loj.,  with  which  they  had  been  provided.* 

The  court  itself,  much  more  than  the  city,  found  that  it 
required  the  aid  of  the  players,  and  it  often  called  upon 
them.    On  January  8,  1604,  Anne  of  Denmark  and  her 

^  The  receipts  were  £399  and  £412,  respectively.  The  average  daily 
takings  for  the  season  were  between  £150  and  £200. 

2  P.  214. 

3  See  British  Museum  playbills,  July  18,  1821,  etc. 

*  Mrs.  Stopes,  Burbage  and  Shakespeare's  Stagey  p.  108. 


i84         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

ladies  presented  at  Hampton  Court  Palace  Daniel's 
Vision  of  the  Twelve  Goddesses^  —  the  first  state  masque 
enacted  by  royalty,  —  and  the  precedent  having  once 
been  set,  royalty  and  nobility  continued  to  present 
masques  and  plays  until  Georgian  times.  Naturally  they 
sought  the  best  advice  that  money  could  buy;  in  other 
words,  they  turned  to  the  professional  players.  The  pro- 
fessionals, too,  were  engaged  to  play  parts  which  the 
noble  amateurs  were  unable  to  take,  or  did  not  care  to 
attempt.  In  1610,  for  instance,  when  Ben  Jonson's 
Oberon  was  produced  for  Prince  Henry,  a  payment  of  £30 
was  allowed  to  "the  Players  imployed  in  the  Barriers" 
and  "  the  Players  imployed  in  the  Maske."  Three  years 
later  Thomas  Campion  wrote  for  court  production  a 
masque  in  honor  of  the  marriage  of  the  Princess  Eliza- 
beth, and  the  expense  account  would  seem  to  indicate 
that  the  professionals  once  more  assisted. ^  In  these  cases 
the  players  apparently  did  more  or  less  of  the  acting,  but 
at  other  times  "Mr.  Taylor  in  to  shordich,"  ^  "his  Matis. 
players  [at]  ye  blacke  friers,"  and  "Mr.  Confes  at  ye  Redd 
Bull"  were  called  in  apparently  for  consultation  only.'* 
Early  in  the  year  1675  the  court  of  Charles  II  was  the 
scene  of  much  anxious  and  lively  activity  on  the  part  of 
certain  young  Thespians  of  exalted  birth.  The  Duke  of 
York's  young  daughters,  —  later  Queen  Mary  and 
Queen  Anne,  —  the  Duke  of  Monmouth,  and  several 
other  young  persons  of  high  rank  were  holding  "in- 
numerable rehearsals"  of  Calisto,  a  masque  which  John 
Crowne  had  been  ordered  to  write  for  them  while  Dryden, 
the  laureate,  was  temporarily  out  of  favor  with  the  all- 
powerful  Rochester.    The  masque  was  very  successful. 

1  See  the  introduction  in  Ernest  Law's  edition  of  this  masque,  1880. 
^  Reyher,  Les  Masques  Anglais,  p.  51 1;  Cambridge  History  of  English 
Literature,  VI,  350;  Campion's  IVorks,  ed.  BuUen,  pp.  191  ff. 
^  See  above,  p.  163,  n.  2. 
*  For  documents  see  Sullivan,  Court  Masques  oj  James  I,  p.  1 50. 


THEATRES  AND   COURT  185 

Genest '  says  that  it  was  acted  at  court  twenty  or  thirty 
times,  and  its  author  modestly  admits  that  it  was  "very 
often  graced"  with  the  royal  presence.  Probably  the  ac- 
tors owed  their  success  in  part  to  their  excellent  coaches, 
for  Davies  writes  that  while  Betterton  "instructed  the 
noble  male-performers  in  Crown's  Calisto^  .  .  .  Mrs. 
Betterton  gave  lessons  to  the  Princesses  Mary  and  Anne, 
.  .  .  and  Mrs.  Sarah  Jennings,  afterwards  the  famous 
Dutchess  of  Marlborough."  ^  Colley  Cibber  adds  that 
the  same  excellent  actress  "had  the  Honour  to  teach 
Queen  Anne,  when  Princess,  the  Part  of  Semandra"  in 
Lee's  Mithridates^^  which  was  acted  at  Holyrood  House 
in  Edinburgh,  while  the  Duke  of  York  was  holding  court 
there  in  1681.  Betterton  himself,  meanwhile,  "did  the 
like  office  to  the  young  noblemen"  who  appeared.*  And 
for  once  princes  did  not  prove  ungrateful.  Queen  Anne 
remembered  these  early  days.  We  have  already  seen  that 
after  the  death  of  Betterton  she  granted  a  pension  to  his 
widow,  and  she  did  as  much  for  Crowne,  the  author  of  the 
masque.^ 

The  Bettertons  were  not  the  only  players  who  taught 
royalty  how  to  tread  the  boards.  In  January,  1749,  there 
was  acted  at  Leicester  House,  the  residence  of  the  Prince 
of  Wales,  the  tragedy  of  Cato^  and  the  role  of  Porcius  was 
filled  by  none  other  than  his  royal  highness,  later  George 
III,  who  charmed  his  audience  particularly  by  his  render- 
ing of  the  Prologue,  in  which  he  proclaimed  himself  "in 
England  born,  in  England  bred,"  and  proud  of  the  fact. 
Doubtless  no  one  in  the  audience  applauded  more 
vigorously  than  James  Quin,  a  great  actor  and  a  favorite 

'  Genest,  I,  i8o;  Crowne's  'Dramatic  Works,  I,  ^2)^\  IV,  350;  cf.  A.  F. 
White,  Publications  of  the  Modern  Language  Association,  December,  1920, 
XXVIII,  457  ff. 

^  Dramatic  Miscellanies,  III,  396. 

^  Apology,  I,  162. 

<  Dibdin,  Annals  oj the  Edinburgh  Stage,  p.  28;  Doran,  I,  68. 

^  See  above,  note  i,  and  p.  98. 


i86         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

with  the  royal  Cato.  Quin,  it  seems,  coached  the  Prince 
for  more  roles  than  one,  for  it  is  reported  that  on  hearing 
his  pupil's  first  speech  in  Parliament  he  said,  "I  knew  he 
would  do  it  well,  for  I  taught  the  boy."  ^  Nor  does  Quin 
conclude  the  list  of  notable  players  who  served  as  dra- 
matic instructors  to  the  great  ones  of  the  world.  There, 
for  instance,  was  Macklin,  who,  but  two  years  after  the 
Prince  of  Wales's  appearance  in  CatOj  superintended  the 
rehearsals  for  a  tremendously  successful  performance  of 
Othello  by  another  company  of  young  ladies  and  gentle- 
men. This  attraction  crowded  Drury  Lane  to  the  very 
Hmit,  scores  of  "persons  of  distinction"  having  perforce 
to  be  content  with  places  in  the  upper  gallery,  while  the 
royal  family  occupied  every  available  seat  in  the  stage 
box.2 

The  craze  for  these  distinguished  private  performances 
had  many  a  revival  in  the  eighteenth  century,  and  will 
doubtless  have  many  another.  Without  pursuing  the 
matter  too  far,  we  may  glance  briefly  (with  Genest  and 
Frederick  Reynolds  ^)  at  the  season  of  1786-87,  when 
Drury  Lane  and  Covent  Garden  "were  almost  forgotten 
in  the  performances  at  Richmond  House,"  in  which  the 
Duke  of  Richmond  had  fitted  up  a  sumptuous  private 
theatre.  Among  the  actors  here  were  the  Earl  of  Derby, 
Lord  Henry  Fitzgerald,  and  other  persons  of  honor;  and 
their  audiences  —  which  included  their  majesties  and  all 
who  counted  at  court  —  voted  them  equal  if  not  superior 
to  Kemble,  Mrs.  Siddons,  and  the  other  stars  of  the  regu- 
lar theatre.  It  may  be  worth  while  to  recall,  further,  that 
the  Richmond  House  rehearsals  were  in  charge  of  an  in- 
teresting colleague  of  the  Kembles,  —  the  very  Miss 
Farren  who  later  became  Countess  of  Derby  within  a  few 
weeks  of  the  death  of  the  previous  holder  of  that  title. 

»  Genest,  IV,  288. 

2  Id.,  IV,  325;  Doran,  II,  163-164. 

'  Genest,  VI,  463-464;  Reynolds,  II,  i  fF. 


THEATRES  AND  COURT  187 

Genest  says  Miss  Farren  was  "allow'd  to  dispose  of  one 
ticket"  for  these  performances,  and  one  imagines  the 
Earl  of  Derby  watching  to  see  that  it  was  Miss  Farren's 
mother  who  used  the  ticket!  However  that  may  have 
been,  I  may  mention  here  also  the  "splendid  theatre" 
erected  at  Blenheim  by  the  Duke  of  Marlborough  and  his 
duchess,  Queen  Anne's  schoolfellow  under  Mrs.  Better- 
ton;  but  a  mere  mention  will  suffice,  since  conditions  at 
Blenheim  did  not  differ  essentially  from  those  at  Rich- 
mond House. 

Other  aspects  of  the  relations  between  the  nobility  and 
the  players  demand  attention;  for  it  need  scarcely  be  said 
that,  in  passing  from  the  activities  of  the  court  royal  to 
those  of  the  ducal  palaces  and  other  noble  houses,  we  are 
merely  turning  from  one  important  phase  of  the  subject 
to  another.  As  regards  the  patronage  of  the  drama,  the 
principle  o{  noblesse  oblige  was  not  forgotten  by  the  king's 
barons  any  more  than  by  the  king  himself;  but  thereby 
hangs  another  tale,  which  should  properly  begin  with 
Elizabethan  rather  than  Georgian  times. 

Until  1583,  when  the  Queen's  company  was  organized, 
all  dramatic  companies  except  those  nameless  strollers 
who  were  at  all  times  liable  to  seizure  and  punishment  as 
vagrants,  were  —  at  least  nominally — "in  the  service" 
of  nobles.  Dutton  Cook  believed  that  the  companies  in 
the  service  of  any  great  personage  were  in  the  receipt  of 
regular  salaries,^  but  this  was  not  always  the  case.  A 
letter,  probably  of  the  year  1574,  from  Leicester's  Men  to 
their  patron,  shows  that  that  company  asked  merely  for 
the  protection  of  his  name,  and  for  their  liveries.  Be- 
cause of  "the  revivinge  of  a  Statute  as  touchinge  re- 
tayners,"  they  desired  a  formal  renewal  of  their  nominal 
service:  "Not  that  we  meane  to  crave  any  further  stipend 
or  benefite  at  your  Lordshippes  handes  but  our  Liveries 
as  we  have  had,  and  also  your  honors  License  to  certifye 

*  A  Book  oj  the  Play,  p.  74. 


i88         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

that  we  are  your  houshold  Servauntes."  ^  Besides  their 
patron's  "countenance,"  however,  the  players  fre- 
quently had  special  rewards  for  private  performances  at 
his  mansion  when  distinguished  guests  were  to  be  enter- 
tained. Shakspere's  company,  for  instance,  played  Sir 
John  Oldcastle  at  Hunsdon  House  in  1600,  and  Loves 
Labour  s  Lost  four  years  later  at  the  house  of  the  Earl  of 
Southampton,  when  that  nobleman  was  entertaining 
Queen  Anne.^  Somewhat  before  this,  in  1598,  Henslowe 
had  lent  one  of  the  Admiral's  Men  enough  money  to  pay 
his  travelling  expenses  to  Croydon,  for  the  company 
journeyed  there  that  year  "  to  ther  lord  when  the  quene 
came  thether,"  —  that  is  to  say,  when  Queen  Elizabeth 
was  Nottingham's  guest.^  At  Croydon  also  Nashe's  Sum- 
mer s  Last  Will  and  Testament  had  probably  been  acted 
in  1592  in  the  palace  of  Archbishop  Whitgift.*  Two  later 
performances  of  this  sort  can  receive  only  the  briefest 
mention  here:  —  that  of  September  27,  1631  —  a  Sab- 
bath day  —  before  John  Williams,  Bishop  of  London, 
who  did  public  penance  for  his  love  of  the  drama  by 
building  a  schoolhouse  at  Eton;  ^  and  one  of  April  9,  1640, 
when  the  Lord  Chamberlain,  according  to  Sir  Henry 
Herbert,  bestowed  upon  King  Charles  at  Whitehall  a 
play  called  Cleodora^  ^ueen  of  Aragon^  written  by  Sir 
Henry's  cousin,  William  Habington.  It  was  "performed 
by  my  lord's  servants  out  of  his  own  family"  and  at  "his 
charge  in  the  cloathes  and  sceanes,  which  were  very 
riche  and  curious."  ^ 

On  a  somewhat  smaller  scale,  perhaps,  but  numerically 
important,  were  the  private  performances  by  profes- 
sional companies  before  noblemen,  citizens,  and  gentle- 

1  Murray,  I,  28;  II,  1 19-120. 

^  Lee,  Lije  oj  Shakespeare,  191 5,  pp.  65,  note  i,  385. 

3  Diary,  I,  72;  II,  242. 

*  McKerrow's  Nas/ie,  IV,  416-419. 
'  Murray,  II,  148-150. 

•  Malone,  III,  240-241. 


THEATRES  AND   COURT  189 

men  "for  the  festyvitie  of  anie  marriage,  Assemblye  of 
ffrendes  or  otherlyke  cawse,"  which  were  in  such  general 
demand  as  to  win  official  sanction  in  the  London  or- 
dinance of  1574  and  ca.  1582,  otherwise  directed  against 
the  theatres.^  There  is  much  additional  evidence  to 
show  that  such  performances  were  exceedingly  popular. 
For  one  thing,  allusions  to  them  in  the  plays  of  the  time 
are  legion. ^  Henslowe  too,  as  usual,  contributes  his  mite 
and  notes  that  in  March,  1598,  the  Admiral's  Men  lost 
certain  "stufe"  '  at  a  private  performance  somewhere  in 
Fleet  Street.  Prynne,  finally,  railed  heartily  on  the  sub- 
ject. "Why  doe  men  send  for  Stage-Players  to  their 
houses?"  he  queries,  "why  doe  they  flocke  vnto  their 
Theaters  ? "  *  Perhaps  it  was  —  and  is  —  because  human 
nature,  with  all  due  respect  to  Prynne  (who  was  a  brave 
man  and  had  the  courage  of  his  convictions)  is  not  what 
he  thought  it  ought  to  be.  "People  will  go  without 
bread,"  says  a  certain  later,  lesser,  but  truer  light  than 
Prynne,  "but,  bless  'em,  never  without  Plays!"  ^  At  all 
events,  these  private  performances  proved  a  welcome  re- 
source to  the  players  in  time  of  trouble,  when  the  theatres 
were  closed  by  the  Plague,  or  for  other  reasons.  At  other 
times  they  brought  additional  income,  for  private  per- 
formances, being  modeled  upon  those  at  court,  were 
usually  given  in  the  evening,  and  thus  did  not  interfere 
with  the  regular  performances.  The  compensation  for 
private  performances  varied,  —  from  £1,  which  the 
King's  Men  received  for  each  of  three  plays  presented  by 
them  at  Skipton  Castle  in  1624,6  to  £3,  £5,  or  perhaps 

1  Malone  Society  Collections,  I,  i68  fF. 

^  Cf.  Brome,  Jovial  Crew,  iv,  2;  City  JVit,  v,  i;  Northern  Lass,  n,  6;  — 
Massinger,  New  tVay  to  Pay  Old  Debts,  iv,  3;  —  Marston,  Dutch  Courtezan, 
iii,  I  (Bullen,  II,  52);  Antonio  and  Mellida,  Pt.  II,  v,  2  (Bullen,  I,  84); — 
Satiromastix,  ed.  Scherer,  line  240. 

^  That  is,  of  course,  properties  or  costumes  {Diary,  I,  85). 

*  Histrio-Mastix,  pp.  47-48. 

*  Frederick  Reynolds,  Management,  a  Comedy,  1799. 
»  Murray,  II,  255. 


I90         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

even  £io,  the  amounts  mentioned  in  connection  with  the 
company  of  strollers  in  the  old  play  of  Sir  Thomas  More. ' 
Immediately  after  the  accession  of  James  I,  the  nobility 
was  deprived  of  one  way  of  showing  its  favor  to  the 
quality,  for  a  statute  of  the  year  1604  forebade  the  licens- 
ing of  players  except  by  members  of  the  royal  family  or 
by  the  Master  of  the  Revels.  But  the  nobility  continued 
to  befriend  them.  In  a  previous  chapter  I  have  recorded 
the  good  works  of  a  great  many  noblemen,  from  Queen 
Elizabeth's  time  to  George  Ill's,  who  did  their  best  for 
the  stage,  according  to  their  lights,  by  writing  plays  for  it. 
That  list  of  noble  playwrights  the  reader  can  readily 
bring  down  to  date  for  himself:  the  names  of  Byron,  Bul- 
wer  Lytton,  Lord  Dunsany,  and  many  another,  will  in- 
evitably occur  to  him.  He  will  recall  also  that  Suckling 
and  others  not  only  gave  their  plays  to  the  actors  as  free 
gifts,  but  expensive  costumes  and  trappings  as  well.^  In 
this  connection  I  should  like  to  add  a  word  concerning  a 
very  old  custom  of  which  I  have  already  spoken,  —  that 
of  giving  to  the  players  clothes  from  the  wardrobe  of  their 
noble  patrons.  Some  writers  on  the  early  theatres  have 
perhaps  made  too  much  of  this  point.  Certainly  Hen- 
slowe's  records  show  that  the  bulk  of  the  costumes  of  the 
Admiral's  Men,  far  from  being  made  up  of  "the  cast-off 
suits"  of  charitable  noblemen,^  were  purchased  new  at 
heavy  expense.  Some  such  gifts,  however,  the  Eliza- 
bethan players  did  use,  though  the  costumes  in  question 
were  probably  no  more  cast-off  than  the  splendid  corona- 
tion suits  loaned  to  D'Avenant's  company  by  Charles  II 
and  his  brother.  Thomas  Platter,  a  Swiss  visitor  to  the 
London  theatres  of  1599,  contributes  definite  information 
on  the  point.  In  his  journal  he  praised  the  "costly  and 
handsome  costumes  "  of  the  actors.  Further,  he  remarked 

^  Ed.  Tucker  Brooke,  Shakespeare  Apocrypha,  p.  407. 

*  See  above,  pp.  46  fF. 

'  As  H.  B.  Baker,  London  Stage,  I,  28,  suggests. 


THEATRES  AND  COURT  191 

that  it  was  a  recognized  custom  in  England  for  noblemen 
to  bequeath  their  most  valuable  clothes  to  their  servants; 
but,  says  he,  "because  it  does  not  become  the  servants  to 
wear  such  clothes,  they  often  sell  them  to  the  players  for 
a  trifle."  ^  One  wonders  whether  it  was  in  some  such  way 
that  Thomas  Sheridan  obtained  a  certain  splendid  cos- 
tume for  Mrs.  Bellamy,  when  she  played  under  his  man- 
agement in  Dublin  some  hundred  and  fifty  years  after 
Platter.  Mrs.  Bellamy  writes  that  shortly  before  the 
opening  of  her  season  Sheridan  had  purchased  in  London 
"a.  superb  suit  of  clothes  that  had  belonged  to  the  Prin- 
cess of  Wales,  and  had  been  worn  by  her  on  the  birth-day. 
This  was  made  into  a  dress  for  me  to  play  the  character 
of  Cleopatra."  ^  We  have  seen  that  other  princesses  gave 
their  coronation  gowns.  As  for  the  earlier  history  of  the 
custom,  I  may  note  here  that  Ben  Jonson  amply  supports 
Platter's  testimony.  In  The  New  Inn,  Lady  Frampul, 
after  giving  a  gown  to  her  maid,  remarks: 

'Tis  rich  enough,  but  'tis  not  what  I  meant  thee. 

I  would  have  had  thee  braver  than  myself 

And  brighter  far.     'Twill  fit  the  players  yet 

When  thou  hast  done  with  it,  and  yield  thee  somewhat.^ 

Ben  Jonson,  of  course,  was  not  above  taking  a  fling  at 
the  tricks  of  his  own  trade,  and  it  would  be  a  mistake  to 
read  too  much  into  this  passage.  In  short,  there  is  no 
reason  to  believe  that  the  actors  bought  large  quantities 
of  cast-off  garments  from  the  nobility.  None  the  less,  it  is 
interesting  to  observe  how  long-lived  the  custom  proved: 
—  to  read,  for  example,  how  Jo  Hayns  went  to  a  great 
nobleman  to  explain  that  he  had  professional  need  for  the 

1  Anglia,  XXII,  459. 

2  Life  oj  G.  A,  Bellamy,  3d  ed.,  I,  130-131. 

3  ii,  I.  Cf.  Congreve,  The  Way  oJ the  World,  iii,  3:  "What  think  you  of 
the  playhouse?  A  fine  gay  glossy  fool  should  be  given  there,  like  a  new 
masking  habit,  after  the  masquerade  is  over,  and  we  have  done  with  the 
disguise." 


192         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

habiliments  of  a  duke,  whereupon  his  grace  lent  him  the 
appropriate  coat  and  waistcoat  and  Star  and  Garter  to 
boot;  ^  or,  in  O'Keeffe's  account  of  the  first  night  of 
Macklin's  True-born  Irishman  in  Dublin,  how,  on  the  en- 
trance of  one  of  the  players,  a  gentleman  in  the  stage  box 
shouted,  "What  sort  of  rascally  coat  is  that?  .  .  .  Here! 
I'll  dress  you!"  Whereupon  he  "stood  up,  took  off  his 
own  rich  gold-laced  coat,  and  flung  it  on  the  stage,"  — 
all  this  to  the  great  content  of  the  actor,  who  accepted  it 
smilingly,  threw  off  his  in  return,  and  resumed  his  part  in 
the  gentleman's  fine  coat.^  It  may  be  that  in  general,  as 
Dr.  Doran  suggests,  the  custom  went  out  before  the 
middle  of  the  eighteenth  century;  in  that  case  Sheridan's 
purchase  for  Mrs.  Bellamy  marks  an  interesting  survival, 
and  so  does  the  help  extended  to  Mrs.  Siddons  in  her  early 
days  at  Cheltenham,  when  she  had  much  of  theatrical 
wardrobe  from  a  noble  patroness.^ 

The  nobility  and  gentry,  as  we  have  seen,  did  not  stop 
with  presents  of  clothing,  old  or  new.  I  need  hardly  speak 
again  of  the  generous  gifts  of  money  which  great  and 
lesser  noblemen  gave  to  such  players  as  Betterton  and 
Mrs.  Bracegirdle,  Booth  and  Mrs.  Clive  and  Mrs.  Sid- 
dons,^ but  at  least  one  good  deed  of  another  sort  deserves 
mention.  More  than  one  player  owed  his  or  her  first 
opportunity  to  the  recommendation  of  some  person  of 
rank,  and  the  obligations  of  one  great  actress  went  even 
further.  The  biographers  of  Nance  Oldfield  tell  us  that 
she  was  first  recommended  to  the  managers  by  Sir  John 
Vanbrugh,  and  that  she  made  her  mark  slowly.  Then, 
one  fine  day,  when  her  salary  was  still  but  fifteen  shillings 
a  week,  the  Duke  of  Bedford,  saw  her,  liked  her  acting, 
and  was  "pleased  to  speak  to  Mr.  Rich  in  her  Favour," 
whereupon  that  astute  manager  "instantly  raised  her 

*  Life  of  Jo  Hayns,  1701,  pp.  40-41. 

^  Recollections,  I,  61-62. 

'  Doran,  II,  304-305,  243.  *  See  above,  pp.  89-90. 


u 


THEATRES  AND  COURT  193 

Allowance  to  twenty  Shillings."  ^  The  incident  is  char- 
acteristic of  an  age  when  the  quality  and  "the  quality" 
were  intimately  associated  in  all  sorts  of  ways;  when 
dukes  and  colonels  went  behind  the  scenes  to  watch  at  re- 
hearsals, to  invite  their  favorite  players  to  their  country 
houses,  or  at  least  to  an  exchange  of  notes  over  the  tea- 
cups —  or  other  cups  —  in  London. ^ 

There  is  space  for  only  the  briefest  glance  at  certain 
other  manifestations  of  the  intimate  relations  between  the 
theatre  and  the  gentry.  One  of  them  is  the  frequent  ap- 
pearance on  the  professional  stage  of  this  or  that  (un- 
named) "Lady"  or  "Gentleman"  in  various  important 
parts,  the  advent  of  such  recruits  being  signalized  always 
by  big  type  in  the  playbills  and  big  crowds  at  the  box- 
office.  Thus,  the  Covent  Garden  playbills  of  March  2, 
1779,  announced  for  two  days  ahead  "Othello,  by  a 
GENTLEMAN,  being  his  first  appearance  on  any  stage." 
A  year  later  they  made  much  of  another  person  of  quality 
who  was  to  make  his  first  bow  on  any  stage  in  the  part  of 
the  Bacchanal  in  ComuSy  and  in  1785  they  featured  in  the 
same  play  "A  YOUNG  LADY"  who  did  the  parts  of 
Sabrina  and  the  Patoral  Nymph.  On  the  same  principle 
Drury  Lane  had  advertised  heavily  a  revival  of  Philaster 
in  1763,  the  cast  being  headed  once  more  by  ''A  YOUNG 
GENTLEMAN"^  Curiously  enough,  John  Highmore,  the 
unfortunate  successor  of  Cibber  and  his  colleagues  in 
the  management  of  Drury  Lane,  took  the  first  step  to- 
ward his  eventual  downfall  by  appearing  as  a  gentleman 
amateur  on  the  stage  that  was  later  to  swallow  up  his 
substance.  "This  unhappy  Gentleman,"  writes  Victor, 
"had  not  one  Requisite  for  an  Actor";  and  yet  he 
"offered   himself  ...  to   play    the   Part   of  Lothario, 

^  See  Egerton,  Memoirs  of  Mrs.  A.  Oldfield,  pp.  2,  76-77;  Chetwood,  pp. 
200-201 ;  Bellchambers,  in  Lowe's  ed.  of  the  Apology,  II,  367. 

2  Cf.  F.  Reynolds,  II,  56. 

'  See  British  Museum  playbills,  February  21,  1780;  March  7,  1785;  April 
26,  1782;  October  15,  1763. 


194         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

prompted  to  that  Extravagance  by  a  Wager  at  White's, 
of  one  hundred  pounds,  which  he  had  made  with  the  late 
Lord  Limerick;  the  managers  readily  accepted  the  Pro- 
posal, and,  besides  the  Benefit  of  the  greatest  Receipt  they 
had  ever  known  to  a  stock  Play,  .  .  .  Mr.  Highmore  made 
them  a  Present  of  the  rich  Suit  he  made  up  for  the  Char- 
acter." Highmore's  friends  flattered  him  upon  his  acting, 
and  he  was  so  pleased  with  his  first  intimate  glimpse  of  the 
workings  of  the  theatre  that,  when  the  time  came,  he 
gladly  accepted  Booth's  ofl^er  to  sell  him  his  share. ^ 

An  even  closer  bond  between  the  stage  and  the  no- 
bility must  needs  be  passed  over  rapidly.  With  such 
royal  precedents  before  them  as  those  set  by  Charles  II 
and  William  IV,^  it  is  not  surprising  that,  as  time  went 
on,  more  than  one  peer  of  the  realm  yielded  to  the  charms 
of  the  daughters  of  the  stage.  It  must  be  said  for  the 
noblemen  that  they  frequently  formed  more  honorable 
attachments  than  their  sovereigns.  Greenroom  gossip  to- 
day never  tires  of  reporting  the  latest  union  between  the 
nobility  (of  birth  or  of  money-bags)  and  the  theatre. 
Here  too,  history  is  merely  repeating  itself.  Witness  the 
fact  that  in  1797  Miss  Farren  became  Countess  of  Derby, 
and  that  in  1807  Louisa  Brunton  took  upon  herself  the 
name  and  dignities  of  the  Countess  of  Craven,  while, 
some  fifty  years  before,  Lavinia  Fenton  dropped  her  role 
as  the  original  Polly  of  The  Beggar  s  Opera  for  the  per- 
manent one  of  Duchess  of  Bolton.^  Of  more  general 
importance,  however,  than  these  personal  bonds,  were 
certain  financial  relations  between  the  nobility  and  the 
theatres. 

There  is  an  old  tradition,  still  more  or  less  credited  in 
some  quarters,  that  the  Globe  Theatre  was  rebuilt  after 

1  Victor,  I,  4-5;  see  above,  p.  138. 
*  Cf.  Boaden,  Lije  oj  Mrs.  Jordan. 

^  On  the  other  hand,  a  good  many  actors  married  ladies  of  rank.  See 
Doran,  II,  206,  352,  etc.;  Wyndham,  I,  87. 


THEATRES  AND  COURT  195 

the  fire  of  1613  "at  the  great  charge  of  King  James  and 
many  noblemen  and  others."  ^  We  have  discovered  long 
before  this  that  King  James  and  several  other  kings  and 
queens  of  England  were  indeed  at  great  charge  for  many 
outlays  connected  with  the  theatre  and  drama,  —  nor 
have  we  yet  exhausted  the  evidence.  The  records  show, 
for  example,  that  in  1564  Queen  Elizabeth  gave  to  "our 
Sckolar  Thomas  Preston"  —  later  King  Cambyses  Pres- 
ton —  a  pension  of  £20  a  year,  because  he  had  pleased 
her  by  his  acting  of  Dido  at  Cambridge  and  in  his  aca- 
demic disputation;  and  that  two  years  later  she  gave  to  a 
boy  actor  in  the  play  oiPalaemon  and  Arcyte  a  bounty  of 
£4  and  a  suit  of  apparel.^  Again,  —  to  jump  forward  by 
two  hundred  and  twenty-five  years  —  it  is  written  that  in 
or  about  1795,  when  Edmund  Kean  had  won  a  reputation 
as  an  infant  prodigy  at  Windsor  Fair,  King  George  sent 
for  him  and  "so  enjoyed  a  taste  of  his  quality  that  the 
young  player  carried  away  with  him  the  bright  guerdon 
of  two  guineas."  And  in  the  meantime,  some  centuries 
after  Preston  and  some  decades  before  Kean,  another 
king  and  queen  had  rewarded  Mrs.  Siddons  with  "a  golden 
chain  with  a  cross  of  many-colored  jewels,"  for  giving 
Shaksperean  readings  at  court,  —  an  employment  in 
which  Garrick  had  preceded  her.^  Such  gifts  were  at  the 
charge  of  many  a  monarch,  but  it  so  happens  that  for  the 
rebuilding  of  the  Globe  in  1613  no  gift  or  other  aid  from 
King  James  was  required. 

The  financial  history  of  that  theatre  is  set  forth  clearly 
in  the  voluminous  records  of  Elizabethan  theatrical  litiga- 
tion brought  to  light  by  the  patient  labors  of  many 
scholars,  and  these  records  show  that  the  rebuilding  in 
1 6 13  was  at  the  charge  of  the  Burbages  and  their  fellow 

^  Furnivall,  Academy^  October  28,  1882,  XX,  315;  Adams,  Shakespearean 
Playhouses,  p.  258,  note  2. 

*  Cunningham,  Revels,  pp.  xix-xx;  Nichols,  Progresses  oj  Elizabeth,  2d  ed., 
I,  1 81-182,  245;  Wallace,  Evolution,  p.  114. 

^  Doran,  II,  380,  262;  Life  oJ  Mrs.  Delany,  VI,  254;  Oulton,  I,  44. 


196         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

housekeepers,  Shakspere,  Hemings,  and  the  rest.^  There 
is  a  different  story  to  tell  of  Restoration  times,  when 
there  were  no  prosperous  housekeepers  to  shoulder  such 
burdens. 

In  1663,  when  Tom  Killigrew  built  the  first  Drury 
Lane  Theatre,  his  usual  luck  was  with  him,  for  he  would 
scarcely  have  been  able  to  finance  that  enterprise  had  not 
Sir  Robert  Howard  come  to  his  assistance  with  a  con- 
siderable sum.  Nine  years  later  the  playhouse  was 
burned  to  the  ground,  and  the  property  had  to  be  mort- 
gaged to  a  firm  of  builders  who  undertook  to  restore  it.^ 
The  rival  company  required  less  help  in  D'Avenant's 
time,^  but  before  long  it  too  had  to  turn  to  its  aristocratic 
friends.  By  1695,  when  Betterton  and  his  colleagues 
were  planning  for  their  new  house,  theatrical  investments 
had  become  decidedly  hazardous,  so  that  the  actors  had 
small  choice  of  methods  in  raising  the  necessary  funds. 
Colley  Cibber  says  simply  that  "many  People  of  Quality 
came  into  a  voluntary  Subscription  of  twenty,  and  some 
of  forty  Guineas  a-piece,  for  erecting  a  Theatre  within 
the  Walls  of  the  Tennis-Court  in  Lincoln's-Inn-Fields,"  * 
but  Gildon's  version  of  the  tale  makes  one  wonder 
whether  Cibber  was  well-advised  in  his  use  of  the  word 
"voluntary."  "We  know,"  says  Gildon,  "what  impor- 
tuning and  dunning  the  Noblemen  there  was,  what 
flattering,  and  what  promising  there  was,  till  at  length, 
the  incouragement  they  received  by  liberal  Contributions 
set  'em  in  a  Condition  to  go  on."  ^  The  essential  point, 
however,  is  that  the  needed  aid  was  forthcoming  in  time. 
So  it  was  once  again,  ten  years  later,  when  Vanbrugh 

^  See  Wallace,  F/r J/  London  Theatre,  etc.;  Halliwell-Phillipps,  0«///«f J; 
Mrs.  S topes,  Burbage  and  Shakespeare's  Stage,  etc. 

2  British  Museum  Addl.  MS.  20,726,  f.  8;  cf.  Lowe,  Betterton,  p.  99.  The 
rebuilding  in  1672-73  cost  £2400. 

'  See  above,  p.  123. 

*  Apology,  I,  194. 

*  Comparison  between  the  Stages,  p.  12. 


THEATRES  AND  COURT  197 

imagined  that  the  falling  fortunes  of  Betterton's  com- 
pany might  be  propped  up  by  a  new  playhouse,  and 
built  them,  accordingly,  that  stately  Theatre  in  the  Hay- 
market  of  which  we  have  heard  in  a  previous  chapter. 
For  this  purpose  he  raised  "  a  Subscription  of  thirty  Per- 
sons of  Quality,  at  one  hundred  Pounds  each,  in  Con- 
sideration whereof  every  Subscriber"  was  to  be  admitted 
gratis,  for  life,  "to  whatever  Entertainments  should  be 
publickly  perform'd  there."  ^  Still  another  case  of  prac- 
tical aid  afforded  by  a  person  of  quality  is  recorded  by 
Cibber,  who  was  of  the  opinion  that  the  Haymarket  in 
1707  had  "a  more  honourable  Mark  of  Favour  shewn  to 
it  than  it  was  ever  known  before  or  since  to  have  re- 
ceiv'd."^  The  nobleman  was  Lord  Halifax,  and  the  favor 
he  did  the  Haymarket  was  to  encourage  a  public  sub- 
scription for  the  revival  of  "Three  Plays  of  the  best 
Authors,"  —  Julius  Ccesar^  A  King  and  No  King,  and 
an  altered  version  of  Marriage  a  la  Mode.  Each  sub- 
scriber paid  three  guineas  and  received  three  tickets  for 
the  first  day  of  each  revival.  All  of  them  proved  highly 
successful.  There  were  many  later  efforts  on  the  part  of 
well-meaning  noblemen  in  behalf  of  the  theatres  —  more, 
indeed,  than  can  be  taken  account  of  here  —  but  it  was 
often  a  case  of  love's  labor  lost.  Suffice  it  to  mention  the 
Duke  of  Bedford's  loan  of  £15,000  toward  the  rebuilding 
of  Covent  Garden  Theatre  in  1792;  the  change  at  the 
Haymarket  next  year,  when  full  control  was  vested  in 
five  noblemen  appointed  by  the  Prince  of  Wales;  and  the 
managerial  committee  of  noblemen  and  gentlemen,  in- 
cluding Lord  Essex  and  Lord  Byron,  which  attempted  to 
guide  the  difficult  affairs  of  Drury  Lane  in  1814.^ 

After  all,  one  cannot  go  far  in  studying  these  matters 
without  deciding  that  the  theatres  paid  for  all  they  got 
from  the  court  and  the  nobility.    We  found  that  with 

1  Apology,  I,  319.  2  11^  4_^. 

•  Wyndham,  I,  255;  Fitzgerald,  II,  384.   Cf.  Doran,  II,  274. 


ipS         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

greater  royal  patronage  under  the  Tudors  and  Stuarts 
came  an  ever  closer  royal  control,  so  that  the  companies 
had  lost  much  of  their  freedom,  even  before  the  closing 
of  the  theatres.  Edmund  Tilney,  the  first  Master  of  the 
Revels,  received  his  patent  in  1581,  and  thereafter  all 
plays  had  to  be  licensed  before  presentation. ^  Sir  Henry 
Herbert,  who  was  really  the  last  of  the  barons  in  this 
office,  defined  his  duties  in  1660  as  "the  ordering  of  plaies, 
players  and  play  makers,  and  the  permission  for  erecting 
of  playhouses."  ^  Before  the  closing  of  the  theatres  Sir 
Henry  had  made  his  office  a  very  lucrative  one  indeed. 
He  had  his  fee  of  three  pounds  a  month  from  the  house- 
keepers of  each  theatre,  a  regular  proprietory  share  of 
their  profits,  and  an  extra  fee  of  two  pounds  for  each  new 
play  he  licensed.'  In  short,  he  exploited  his  office  to  the 
limit  then,  and  he  would  have  done  as  much  after  the 
Restoration,  had  not  D'Avenant  and  Killigrew  inter- 
fered. They  made  him  an  allowance,  but  the  power  of  his 
office  waned.  Henceforth  Tom  Killigrew  and  his  son 
Charles  served  as  Masters  and  collected  as  many  of  the 
old  fees  as  they  could.  In  (or  about)  1715,  however,  the 
Drury  Lane  management  refused  to  pay,  and  the  Master 
of  the  Revels  found  his  occupation  gone.^  None  the  less 
the  players  continued  to  pay  for  all  the  court  patronage 
they  received.  From  the  beginning  to  the  end,  the  exac- 
tions that  rested  most  heavily  upon  them  were  not  those 

*  See  Chambers,  The  Tudor  Revels,  pp.  71  ff.;  Shakespeare  Society  Papers, 
III,  1-6. 

2  Halliwell-Phillipps,  Collection,  p.  ai  (cf.  pp.  24,33);  Adams,  Dramatic 
Records  of  Sir  Henry  Herbert,  p.  85  (cf.  p.  89). 

^  Immediately  after  the  Restoration  Herbert  demanded  £4  a  week  in- 
stead of  the  £3  a  month  he  is  known  to  have  had  from  the  EHzabethan 
housekeepers.  See  Henslowe's  Diary,  II,  114-118;  Malone,  III,  231,  266,  267. 

*  Malone,  III,  267;  Chalmers,  Apology,  pp.  522  ff.;  Cibber,  Apology,  I, 
277-278.  The  Masters  eked  out  their  income  as  well  as  they  could,  by 
collecting  license  fees  from  all  the  mountebanks,  rope-dancers,  and  puppet- 
showmen  they  could  reach,  —  indeed  even  from  the  ballad  mongers,  "for 
Singing  and  Selling  of  Ballads  and  small  Books"  (Henry  Morley,  Memoirs 
oj  Bartholomew  Fair,  1892,  pp.  228,  219-220). 


THEATRES  AND  COURT  199 

of  the  Master  of  the  Revels,  nor  yet  those  of  the  royal 
licensers  who  took  over  some  of  his  functions  after  the 
Licensing  Act  of  1737  was  put  upon  the  statute-books. 
They  paid,  first  and  foremost,  by  accepting  as  a  matter  of 
course  the  monopoly  established  by  the  king.  This 
monopoly  choked  free  initiative  and  courageous  enter- 
prise in  the  theatre,  and  the  dominance  of  the  court  in- 
terest limited  the  range  and  scope  of  the  drama  produced. 
Thus  it  came  about  that  a  Fielding  could  be  driven  off 
the  boards;  thus  Shakspere's  vast  theatre  dwindled  into 
an  elegant  drawing-room  in  which  clever  things  were  said: 
the  stage  no  longer  held  the  mirror  up  to  nature,  but 
merely  to  the  beaux  and  belles  and  fops  of  the  court. 
Again  and  again  the  commonalty  revenged  itself  by 
staying  away,  and  the  plague  of  thin  houses  proved  hard 
to  fight.  Besides,  there  was  always  the  irritation  of  con- 
trol from  above.  In  accepting  the  monopoly,  the  players 
and  managers  accepted  the  overlordship  of  the  king's 
Chamberlain.  He  was  their  fountain  of  justice,  the  ar- 
biter in  all  disputes,  the  power  behind  the  throne  which 
too  often  threw  the  destiny  of  the  theatres  into  the  hands 
of  mere  hangers-on  of  the  court. ^  Indeed,  the  Lord 
Chamberlain  retains  much  of  his  old  power  to  this  day, 
and  sometimes  adds  to  the  gaiety  of  nations  in  his  use 
of  it.  Such  a  case  was  reported  in  the  London  news- 
papers in  November,  191 9.  A  certain  lady  was  to  begin 
her  career  as  actor-manager  at  the  St.  Martin's  Theatre 
in  the  title  role  of  A  'Dear  Little  Devil.  But,  says  the  re- 
porter, "the  Lord  Chamberlain  thought  not.  So  she 
begins  as  A  Dear  Little  Lady.  Whether  the  censored  title 
would  have  been  more  accurately  descriptive,  the  au- 
dience must  decide." 

There  remains  but  a  word  to  add.  By  way  of  striking 
a  final  balance,  it  is  pleasant  to  emphasize  the  point  that 
the  close  relations  between  the  court  and  the  theatres 

^  See  above,  pp.  129  fF.,  and  Appendix  I. 


200         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

proved  decidedly  helpful  to  the  playwrights.  As  far  back 
as  Henry  VIII's  time,  William  Cornish  and  John  Hey- 
wood,  who  wrote  and  staged  interludes  and  entertain- 
ments for  the  Children  of  the  Revels,  received  substantial 
gifts  and  pensions  from  the  king.i  And  this  tradition  was 
honorably  maintained,  for  in  or  about  1611  Prince  Henry 
granted  a  pension  to  one  "M'  Drayton,  a  poett,"  — 
thereby  setting  a  good  example  to  his  father,  who  acted 
upon  it  five  years  later  when  he  allowed  Ben  Jonson  a 
pension  of  £66  13J.  ^d.  This  Charles  I  (in  1630)  increased 
to  £100,  plus  "a  tierce  of  Canary  wine."  '^  The  reader 
will  recall  how  many  succeeding  laureates  —  D'Avenant, 
Dryden,  Shadwell,  Cibber,  to  mention  only  a  few  —  were 
intimately  connected  with  the  theatre.  Ben  Jonson, 
moreover,  earned  substantial  sums  by  his  court  masques 
and  as  chronologer  of  the  city  of  London  and  "Inventor 
of  its  honorable  entertainments,"  —  the  latter  an  office 
to  which  he  fell  heir  upon  the  death  of  Thomas  Middle- 
ton,  the  previous  incumbent.^  After  Jonson's  death  the 
writing  of  these  pageants  fell  to  Thomas  Heywood, 
Anthony  Munday,  and  Thomas  Dekker.  With  the  com- 
ing of  the  Restoration,  D'Avenant  succeeded  Jonson  in 
the  laurel,  and  many  another  playwright  who  did  not 
hold  that  somewhat  doubtful  distinction  none  the  less 
found  favor  and  profit  at  court.  John  Crowne  and  El- 
kanah  Settle  had  their  occasional  crumbs  of  comfort; 
Etherege,  Wycherley,  and  Congreve  were  rewarded  with 
well-paying  sinecures;  Foote  won  his  Haymarket  patent 
by  the  help  of  the  Duke  of  York;  and  Gay  was  consoled 
—  when    the    town   proved   unkind  —  by   cordial   invi- 

^  Cf.  Wallace,  Evolution,  pp.  33-34,  48,  78,  82.  Cornish  got  a  present  of 
£200  in  1516;  Heywood  a  pension  of  £50  in  1555. 

*  Cunningham,  Revels,  p.  xvii;  Gifford's  Jonson,  I,  cliv  ff.,  IX,  43-44. 

'  Jonson's  masques  may  have  brought  him  £50  each,  and  the  city  ap- 
pointment was  worth  a  hundred  nobles  a  year.  Cf.  Dyce's  Middleton,  I, 
xlff. 


THEATRES  AND   COURT  201 

tations  to  read  his  work  at  court. ^  Time  went  on,  but 
still  monarchs  did  good  deeds  on  occasion.  So  late  as 
1820,  John  O'Keeffe,  an  amusing  but  certainly  not  an 
inspired  patcher  of  plays,  received  a  royal  pension  which 
enabled  him  to  follow  his  Pegasus  into  well-deserved  re- 
tirement. Court  support,  in  a  word,  did  not  prove  an 
unmixed  blessing  to  the  theatre  by  and  large;  but  it 
helped  the  playwrights  until  conditions  so  changed  that 
they  were  able  to  help  themselves.^ 

^  Doran,  II,  152.   On  the  city  shows  see  Withington,  English  Pageantry y 
1918,  1920, 

*  See  above,  pp.  68-69.  ^ 


Chapter  VI 


THE  PLAYHOUSES 

I.   Financing 

CAPTAIN  BRAZEN,  one  of  the  recruiting  officers  in 
Farquhar's  comedy,  had  a  project  for  laying  out  a 
thousand  pounds.  Like  a  wise  man,  he  looked  before  he 
leaped;  before  coming  to  a  decision  he  called  upon  his 
sagacious  comrade.  Captain  Plume,  for  advice.  He  asks 
a  simple  question:  "Shall  I  build  a  privateer  or  a  play- 
house?" and  gets  a  simple  reply:  "Faith,"  says  Plume, 
"  I'm  for  a  privateer."  Brazen,  however,  is  not  convinced, 
and  points  out  that  a  privateer  "may  run  upon  the  shal- 
lows." "  Not  so  often,"  says  the  other, "  as  a  playhouse ! " 
Brazen  thereupon  puts  another  case:  "Suppose  the  priva- 
teer come  home  with  a  rich  booty, — we  should  never  agree 
about  our  shares?"  Plume  concedes  the  point,  with  one 
important  reservation:  "'Tis  just  so  in  a  playhouse!"  ^ 
Plume  was  exactly  right,  and  his  summary  of  the  case 
describes  the  situation  in  Shakspere's  time  almost  as  well 
as  in  Farquhar's.  It  is  largely  because  Elizabethan  in- 
vestors in  the  playhouses  rarely  agreed  about  their 
shares,  and  therefore  —  being  Elizabethans  —  frequently 
and  promptly  went  to  law  about  them,  that  much  infor- 
mation concerning  the  early  theatres  has  come  down  to 
us. 2  I  have  already  drawn  upon  this  information,  but  it 
will  serve  none  the  less  usefully  here  to  point  the  way  to- 
wards further  conclusions.  We  have  still  to  count  the 
cost,  in  money  and  vigilant  effort,  of  the  playhous,es 
themselves,  from  the  humble  beginnings  made  by  James 
Burbage  in  1576  to  the  vast  enterprises  of  the  eighteenth 

^  The  Recruiting  Officer,  v,  4.  ^  See  above,  pp.  121,  78,  etc. 


THE  PLAYHOUSES  203 

century.  In  connection  therewith  shares  and  sharers 
must  have  another  word.  The  continuity  of  theatrical 
tradition  and  methods  will  be  much  in  evidence,  once 
more,  in  the  consideration  of  playhouse  finance,  as  well 
as  of  the  matters  more  or  less  connected  with  it,  —  the 
provision  for  general  expenditure,  rates  of  admission, 
advertising,  the  handling  of  audiences,  and  all  the  thou- 
sand and  one  details  of  box-office  administration.  Certain 
developments  in  method  and  policy  are  to  be  noted,  but 
the  playgoer  of  to-day  will  be  struck  by  the  similarities 
rather  than  the  differences  between  our  theatres  and 
those  of  old. 

If  we  are  to  do  justice  to  the  Shaksperean  playhouses, 
we  must  bear  in  mind  the  peculiar  status  of  their  "house- 
keepers" or  owners.  I  have  shown  that  in  most  cases  the 
general  business  of  management  and  production  was  not 
in  their  charge.  Obviously,  however,  they  were  inti- 
mately concerned  about  these  matters,  since  their  profit 
arose  from  the  division  of  the  daily  receipts  with  the 
companies.  It  was  their  business,  therefore,  to  keep  in 
close  contact  with  the  players,  and  generally  to  do  what 
they  could  to  promote  the  success  of  the  theatres.^  But, 
first  of  all,  they  had  to  find  the  money  for  the  building 
and  upkeep  of  their  houses.  Further,  they  had  to  live  at 
peace  with  their  landlords  and  maintain  amiable  relations 
with  their  competitors  and  their  public.  Let  us  see  how 
they  did  it. 

I  am  of  the  opinion  that  the  Elizabethan  theatres  were 
not  so  hopelessly  crude  as  most  of  us  imagine.  Malone,  I 
think,  had  too  low  an  opinion  of  their  equipment  and 
furnishings,^  and  some  later  writers  have  gone  so  far  as  to 
picture  the  old  playhouses  as  unadorned  and  downright 
shabby.'    It  is  mere  truism,  in  turn,  to  advert  to  the 

^  See  above,  pp.  28,  70-71.  ^  Malone,  III,  81,  88,  107,  118,  180. 

'  So  sound  a  scholar  as  Mr.  Ernest  Law  contrasts  (too  sharply,  in  my 
opinion)  "the  splendor  and  brilliance"  of  the  performances  at  court  with 


204         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

Elizabethans'  passionate  love  of  splendid  show  and  gor- 
geous decoration,  —  yet  how  reconcile  all  this  with  the 
accepted  view  of  their  theatres?  Granted  that  play- 
house-construction was  a  new  art  in  1576,  it  still  does  not 
follow  that  the  old  theatres  were  so  shabby  as  we  have 
been  led  to  believe.  Certain  it  is  that  large  sums  were  ex- 
pended in  building  and  equipping  them,  —  some  £500 
each  for  the  Globe,  the  Fortune,  the  Swan,  and  the 
Hope;  probably  considerably  more  for  The  Theatre  and 
the  Rose;  and  certainly  as  much  as  £1,000  for  the  rebuild- 
ing of  the  Fortune  in  1622,  and  £1,400  for  the  new  Globe 
of  1613.^  Nor  should  it  be  forgotten  that  these  sums  then 
represented  a  purchasing  power  ranging  from  $25,000  to 
$75,000  in  the  values  of  to-day.  If  the  amount  of  money 
invested  proves  anything,  it  would  seem  to  indicate  that 
contemporary  descriptions  of  the  old  theatres  were 
nearer  the  truth  than  those  of  later  commentators.  For 
Elizabethan  writers  energetically  attacked  the  "sump- 
tuous" and  "gorgeous  playing-places,"  or,  per  contra^ 
spoke  proudly  of  their  own  "stately  Play-houses"  as 
compared  with  the  "very  beggarly  and  bare"  theatres  of 
Italy. 2  The  difference  in  point  of  view  makes  the  coinci- 
dence of  testimony  all  the  more  interesting,  though  it  may 

"the  customary  environment  ...  at  the  public  theatres  .  .  .  the  shabby 
posts  and  boards  and  the  meanly  clad  crowd  of  .  .  .  groundlings"  (London 
Times,  December  26,  19 10). 

1  See,  on  the  Globe,  Wallace,  Children  of  the  Chapel,  p.  29,  and  Adams, 
Shakespearean  Playhouses,  pp.  239  flF.;  on  the  Fortune,  Henslowe  Papers,  pp. 
108,  4  ff.;  on  the  Swan  and  the  Hope,  Papers,  pp.  19  ff.  The  Theatre  is  said 
to  have  cost  from  six  to  seven  hundred  pounds,  but  this  sum  may  have  in- 
cluded alterations  and  repairs  (Wallace,  First  London  Theatre,  pp.  148,  6). 
For  the  building  and  leasehold  of  the  Rose,  Henslowe  seems  to  have  paid  more 
than  eight  hundred  pounds  {Diary,  II,  43-44;  cf.  Archer  and  Lawrence  in 
Shakespeare's  England,  II,  289).  Concerning  the  new  Globe,  see  Wallace, 
Shakespeare  and  his  London  Associates,  pp.  60-61,  and  Halliwell-Phillipps, 
Outlines,  I,  316;  on  the  new  Fortune,  Henslowe  Papers,  pp.  28-30,  and 
Adams,  p.  286. 

^  See  Stockwood's  attack  on  The  Theatre  (Collier,  III,  83);  Thomas 
White's  sermon  of  1577  (Halliwell-Phillipps,  I,  365);  Coryat's  Crudities, 
1611,  p.  247. 


THE  PLAYHOUSES  205 

be  granted  that  this  testimony  in  and  for  itself  does  not 
settle  our  question.^  In  any  case,  I  may  be  permitted  to 
add  still  another  bit  of  evidence,  a  passage  from  a  pro- 
logue spoken  in  1640  at  the  Red  Bull,  which  was  one  of 
the  least  pretentious  of  the  Elizabethan  theatres: 

Our  curtaines.  ... 

I  pray  take  notice  .  .  .  are 

Pure  Naples  silk,  not  worsted.'' 

The  pioneers  of  the  theatre  did  not  find  it  an  easy  task 
to  raise  the  comparatively  large  sums  required  for  the 
building  of  the  playhouses  and  for  repairs  and  upkeep, 
which  also  ran  frequently  into  the  hundreds  of  pounds.^ 
Like  other  entrepreneurs^  they  started  by  borrowing  on 
interest,  but  —  like  others  again  —  they  found  this  an 
irksome  method.  James  Burbage,  according  to  his  son's 
statement,  built  The  Theatre  (in  1576)  "with  many 
hundred  pounds  taken  up  at  interest,"  and  then,  within 
three  years  after  its  opening,  had  to  raise  a  mortgage  of 
£125  on  the  property.  Ultimately  this  mortgage  was  for- 
feited, and  the  playhouse  was  saved  only  by  the  resource- 
fulness ofCuthbert  Burbage  —  another  true  chip  of  the 
old  block  —  who  was  able  to  bring  sufficient  influence  and 
ready  money  to  bear  at  the  critical  moment/  In  1589, 
in  spite  of  this  warning,  James  Burbage's  competitor, 
Francis  Langley,  borrowed  £800  of  the  £850  which  he 
paid  for  the  land  upon  which  he  built  the  Swan  Theatre; 
and  he  was  able  to  pay  the  interest  on  the  loan,  although 
his  theatre  was  not  always  fully  booked,  —  to  use  the 
modern  term.^   Indeed,  James  Burbage  himself  was  not 

1  For  further  material,  see  below,  pp.  212,  245  fF. 

*  J,  Tatham,  Fancies  Theatre,  1640,  sig.  H.  3.  Cf.  Malone,  III,  79;  Mur- 
ray, I,  223. 

^  Cf.  Henslowe's  Diary,  I,  4,  10;  II,  54;  Wallace,  Evolution,  pp.  147-158; 
Henslowe  Papers,  pp.  102-103,  108,  no;  Halliwell-Phillipps,  I,  317. 

*  See  Wallace,  First  London  Theatre,  pp.  16,  145,  120. 

*  Wallace,  Englische  Studien,  XLIII,  342;  Malone  Society  Collections,  I, 
74  fF.;  Stopes,  Burbage  and  Shakespeare's  Stage,  pp.  177-183. 


2o6         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

frightened  by  his  first  experience,  for  in  1596,  when  he 
bought  the  Blackfriars  for  £600,  he  raised  over  a  third  of 
that  sum  on  mortgage.  Cuthbert  Burbage,  finally, 
stated  in  1635  ^^^^  P^^^  °^  ^^^  money  required  to  build 
the  Globe  in  1599  represented  "summes  of  money  taken 
up  at  interest,  .  .  .  which  lay  heavy  on  us  many 
yeeres,"  ^  —  this,  too,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  with  the 
building  of  the  Globe  financing  by  shareholdership  had 
come  in. 

Long  before,  however,  James  Burbage  as  well  as 
Philip  Henslowe  had  raised  money  in  a  diflferent  way,  by 
taking  others  into  partnership.  The  capital  of  The 
Theatre,  in  so  far  as  it  did  not  represent  money  borrowed 
at  interest,  was  supplied  by  Burbage's  brother-in-law 
and  partner,  John  Braynes,  who  was  described  as  "of  a 
welthie  trade,  and  a  grocer  in  Bucklers  Burye,  London." 
Burbage  more  than  balanced  the  value  of  his  partner's 
money  by  contributing  to  their  enterprise  his  invaluable 
experience  as  builder  and  actor.  The  partners  shared  the 
profits  equally  but  never  got  along  well  together;  indeed, 
there  ensued,  eventually,  long  and  bitterly  contested  liti- 
gation, which  dragged  on  even  after  Braynes's  death.^ 
Henslowe,  meanwhile  (in  1587),  had  found  in  John 
Cholmley,  another  substantial  London  grocer,  a  half- 
partner  for  the  Rose.  How  long  this  partnership  lasted  is 
not  clear,  but  we  know  that  in  1594,  when  Henslowe  took 
over  the  control  of  the  Bear  Garden,  he  formed  another 
partnership,  this  time  with  his  son-in-law,  Edward  Al- 
leyn,  and  that  he  and  Alleyn  were  partners  in  building 
the  Fortune  in  1600.  In  16 10  Alleyn  sold  his  share  in  the 
Bear  Garden  to  Henslowe  for  £580,  though  he  retained  a 
titular  joint-mastership  of  "the  royal  game  of  bears, 
bulls,  and  mastiflF  dogs."   When  Henslowe  pulled  down 

1  Halliwell-Phillipps,  I,  317. 

*  Wallace,  First  London  Theatre,  pp.  102,  139  etc.;  Stopes,  Burbage,  pp. 
47  ff. 


THE  PLAYHOUSES  207 

the  Bear  Garden  in  1613,  and  replaced  it  with  the  Hope 
Theatre,  he  took  one  Jacob  Meade,  waterman,  of  South- 
wark,  as  partner  in  that  enterprise.^ 

Some  time  before  this,  a  change  had  come.  By  1599, 
when  the  Globe  was  built,  the  housekeepers  had  begun 
to  enlarge  their  circle  by  taking  in  certain  substantial 
players  and  business  men  as  fellow-sharers  in  the  pro- 
prietary profits,  —  in  other  words,  by  increasing  the 
number  of  partners  and  decreasing  the  liability  of  each.^ 
The  risks  involved  were  heavy.  As  one  of  the  parties  in 
the  Globe  and  Blackfriars  sharing  dispute  of  1635  V^^  ^^j 
the  housekeepers'  profits  were  "very  casuall  and  subject 
to  bee  discontinued  and  lost  by  sickness  ^  and  diverse 
other  wayes  and  to  yield  noe  profStt  at  all."  Even  so, 
proprietary  shares  made  an  attractive  investment.  Be- 
cause of  the  risks  they  sold  at  a  low  figure,  and  the  evi- 
dence shows  that  frequently  a  single  year's  profits  more 
than  paid  the  cost.  The  whole  question  of  the  selling 
prices  and  profits  of  shares  was  repeatedly  threshed 
out  before  judge  and  jury,  and  the  figures  stand  out 
clearly.  We  learn  that  a  Globe  share  sold  for  less  than 
£60  sometime  before  161 2;  a  Red  Bull  share  went  for 
£50  in  1607,  and  a  Whitefriars  share  in  1608  for  £70; 
while  Blackfriars  shares  brought  about  £100  before 
1635.'*  Now  Shakspere  owned  one  of  the  ten  proprietary 
shares  of  the  Globe,  and  one  of  the  seven  of  the  Black- 
friars, and  each  of  these  holdings  of  his  earned  him  —  at 
a  conservative  estimate  —  from  £75  to  £100  a  year.^ 

1  Diary,  II,  35  fF.,  44-45.  66-67;  Papers,  pp.  4,  19, 107. 

-  See  above,  p.  28. 

^  I.  e.,  the  Plague.   For  the  document  see  Halliwell-Phillipps,  Outlines,  I, 

314- 

^  In  many  cases,  the  purchaser  of  a  share  paid  also  an  annual  rent,  which 
ranged  from  50J.  to  £8  10s.  For  documents,  see  Halliwell-Phillipps,  I,  314; 
Wallace,  Shakspere  and  his  London  Associates,  pp.  61,  78,  80-81,  and  Three 
London  Theatres,  pp.  8-9,  18-19;  Greenstreet,  New  Shakspere  Society  Trans- 
actions, 1 887-1 892,  pp.  272  fF. 

'  Cf.  the  writer's  paper  on  Shakspere' s  Income,  Studies  in  Philology,  XV, 
82  ff. 


2o8         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

No  wonder  then,  that  Investments  so  attractive  ap- 
pealed to  men  with  an  eye  for  business.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  scores  of  prosperous  goldsmiths,  silk-weavers, 
haberdashers,  general  merchants,  —  in  short,  all  sorts 
and  conditions  of  successful  business  men,^  took  their 
place  among  the  housekeepers,  side  by  side  with  profes- 
sional players  and  dramatists  and  veteran  theatrical 
entrepreneurs  like  Henslowe  and  Langley  and  the  Bur- 
bages.  The  success  of  the  shareholding  system  appears 
from  the  fact  that  not  only  the  Globe  and  the  Black- 
friars,  but  also  the  Curtain,  the  Red  Bull,  the  White- 
friars,  the  Cockpit,  the  Salisbury  Court,  and  the  Fortune 
adopted  it.^ 

1  have  suggested  that  theatrical  shares  in  Shakspere's 
time  were  a  highly  speculative  investment.  Theatrical 
investments  still  have  their  speculative  element,  but  as 
compared  with  those  of  old  they  are  as  government 
bonds  beside  wildcat  mining  stocks.  The  greater  uncer- 
tainty of  old  was  caused  partly  by  such  hindrances  as  the 
Plague,  the  weather,  and  the  Puritans;  partly  by  the 
housekeepers'  landlords.  Trouble  with  the  landlords 
arose  fundamentally  from  the  fact  that  the  housekeepers 
often  found  it  impossible  to  buy  the  land  upon  which  they 
built  —  a  difficulty  which  still  holds  to  some  considerable 
extent  in  modern  England.  Landowners  often  refused  to 
sell,  and  the  entrepreneurs  had  to  content  themselves  with 
leases.  When  the  playhouses  had  once  been  built  and  it 
came  to  the  point  of  seeking  renewals,  trouble  arose 
again  and  again,  and  so,  as  Cuthbert  Burbagesaid  for  the 
housekeepers  of  the  Globe  and  Blackfriars,  "  the  infinite 
charges,  the  manifold  law-suites,  the  leases  expiration, 
[etc.]  did  cut  from  them  the  best  part  of  the  gaines."  ^  No 
wonder  that  in  Elizabethan  times  an  "expired  lease"  was 

^  See  above,  p.  207,  n.  4. 

2  Ibid.\  Malone,  III,  121;  Henslowe  Papers,  p.  13;  Greenstreet,  New 
Shakspere  Society  Transactions,  1 887-1 892,  pp.  269  fF. 

3  Halliwell-Phillipps,  I,  317. 


THE  PLAYHOUSES  209 

looked  upon  as  the  very  symbol  of  all  the  tragic  inepti- 
tudes of  life. ^ 

Elizabethan  land  values  were  very  low:  Shakspere,  for 
example,  had  to  pay  but  £60  in  1597  for  New  Place,  the 
second  largest  house  in  Stratford.  The  charge  for  play- 
house ground-rent  was  correspondingly  reasonable,  with 
perhaps  one  exception.  The  housekeepers  of  the  Rose, 
the  Fortune,  The  Theatre,  and  the  Globe,  paid  but 
seven,  twelve,  fourteen  and  fifteen  pounds  a  year,  re- 
spectively.2  But  their  leases  ordinarily  ran  for  but 
twenty,  or  at  most,  thirty  years  —  with  one  exception 
again,  the  very  case  alluded  to  a  moment  ago.  The  lease 
of  the  Salisbury  Court  Theatre  in  1629  stipulated  a  term 
of  forty-one  years  and  six  months,  and  the  value  of  this 
extra  time  was  duly  considered,  for  the  ground-rent  was 
put  at  £25  for  the  first  half-year  and  £100  a  year  for  the 
remainder  of  the  term.^  Yet  the  Salisbury  Court  house- 
keepers probably  considered  their  bargain  a  good  one,  for 
it  often  proved  next  to  impossible  to  obtain  a  renewal  of  a 
short-term  lease. 

In  1598  James  Burbage  had  offered  his  landlord  a 
premium  of  £100  for  a  renewal  of  The  Theatre  lease,  but 
the  offer  was  flatly  rejected,  though  the  contract  between 
the  parties  clearly  required  the  landlord  to  grant  a  ten- 
year  extension  without  extra  compensation.  In  some 
cases  substantial  bonuses  for  the  renewal  of  leases  were 
offered  and  accepted,  but  they  were  refused  more  than 
once.  Some  twelve  years  before  Burbage  and  his  land- 
lord fell  to  buffets,  Sir  William  More  spent  three  times  the 

^  Cf.  Guilpin's  Skialetheia,  1598,  Satire  3  (ed.  Collier,  p.  41): 
Now,  fie  vpon  this  pride,  which  makes  wise  men 
Looke  like  expired  leases:  out  of  doulft 
Thou  wert  wise,  but  thy  lease  of  wit  is  out. 

2  Henslowe's  Diary,  II,  43;  Papers,  pp.  15-17,  108;  Wallace,  London 
Times,  October  2  and  4,  1909,  March  28,  1913,  May  i,  1914;  First  London 
Theatre,  p.  177;  Shakspere  and  his  London  Associates,  p.  53. 

^  Shakespeare  Society  Papers,  IV,  104. 


2IO         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

annual  income  of  his  Blackfriars  property  to  break  the 
lease  of  the  first  theatre  there,  because  he  had  come  to  re- 
gard" a  howse  for  plays  "  as  an  "  offence  to  the  precincte." ' 
Probably  he  and  Giles  Allen,  the  landlord  of  The  Theatre, 
had  been  won  over  by  the  Puritan  opposition.  At  any 
rate,  Allen's  refusal  to  renew  led  to  the  interesting 
episode,  already  referred  to,^  of  the  rapid-fire  removal  of 
The  Theatre's  timber  to  the  Bankside,  where  the  Globe 
was  created  from  its  ribs.  For  the  next  three  years  Allen 
vindictively  pursued  his  old  tenants  in  the  courts,  always 
without  success,  but  never  without  costly  annoyance  to 
them.  And  yet,  in  spite  of  this  sorry  experience,  the  Bur- 
bages  were  forced  to  expose  themselves  once  more  to  the 
danger  of  having  to  pick  up  their  playhouse  and  move  it 
bodily,  for  the  Globe,  like  The  Theatre,  was  built  on 
leased  land.  It  is  impossible  to  believe  that  they  would 
not  have  bought  the  land,  had  it  been  for  sale.  James 
Burbage,  at  all  events,  did  what  he  could  to  avert  future 
trouble.  He  had  dealings  with  More  as  well  as  with  Allen, 
and  doubtless  learned  to  judge  his  men.  In  1596,  there- 
fore, he  bought  outright  from  More  that  part  of  the 
Blackfriars  property  which  he  wanted  for  his  playhouse. 
His  sons  later  invested  several  hundred  pounds  more  to 
enlarge  this  holding,  —  a  more  satisfactory  investment 
than  their  outlay  upon  the  legal  squabbles  which  ensued 
when  they  sought  a  renewal  of  the  Globe  ground-lease.' 
One  other  set  of  transactions  should  be  mentioned  here, 
since  it  speaks  eloquently  of  the  shrewdness  of  the  land- 
lords and  shows  that,  when  opportunity  offered,  the 
housekeepers  were  willing  to  pay  handsomely  to  forestall 
such  complications  as  those  at  the  first  Blackfriars,  the 

^  Wallace,  Evolution,  pp.  134,  176;  Feuillerat,  Shakespeare  Jahrbuch, 
XLVIII,  96,  100,  and  Malone  Society  Collections,  II,  32. 

2  See  above,  p.  129. 

^  More  than  one  "chargeable  suit"  grew  out  of  this  effort  to  secure  a  re- 
newal (cf.  Globe  and  Blackfriars  Share  Papers,  in  Halliwell-Phillipps;  Wal- 
lace, London  Times,  April  30  and  May  i,  1914). 


THE  PLAYHOUSES  211 

Theatre,  and  the  Globe.  Edward  Alleyn's  negotiations 
for  the  Fortune  property  are  marked  by  the  same  good 
sense  which  earned  for  the  founder  of  Dulwich  College 
more  riches  than  fell  to  the  lot  of  any  of  his  fellow- 
players.  In  1599  Alleyn  bought  for  £240  a  lease  for  the 
Fortune  lands  which  had  26  years  to  run  and  called  for  an 
annual  rent  of  £12.  Alleyn  and  Henslowe  then  built 
their  playhouse,  —  whereupon  the  landlord,  scenting  an 
opportunity  for  further  profit,  granted  a  reversion  of  the 
lease,  for  21  years,  to  an  outsider.  The  reversion  con- 
tinued the  old  rental  of  £12,  but  it  doubtless  brought  the 
landlord  a  substantial  bonus.  As  matters  then  stood, 
Alleyn  could  have  had  no  renewal  of  the  lease  on  its  ex- 
piration in  1625,  but  he  made  the  best  of  the  situation  by 
buying  off  the  reversionary  lessee.  A  bonus  of  £100  per- 
suaded that  gentleman  to  cancel  his  instrument.  By  this 
time,  however,  Alleyn  had  apparently  made  up  his  mind 
that  it  would  be  cheaper  to  purchase  the  property,  even 
at  a  stiff  price,^  than  to  await  further  exploitation  by  the 
landlord.  In  1610,  therefore,  he  bought  the  Fortune 
lands  for  £340.2 

After  the  Restoration,  playhouse  construction  became 
more  expensive,  but  the  situation  as  regards  ground 
leases  became  easier.  The  logic  of  the  situation  is  ob- 
vious: in  the  first  place,  the  monopoly  cut  down  the 
number  of  playhouses;  secondly,  theatrical  profits,  as 
compared  with  those  of  Elizabethan  times,  were  small  or 
altogether  lacking;  withal,  there  was  little  incentive  for 
profiteering  on  the  part  of  theatrical  landlords.  Accord- 
ingly, the  ground-rent  of  the  new  Theatre  Royal  in  Drury 
Lane  was  fixed  in  1661  at  £50  —  only  half  the  rent  of  the 
old  Salisbury  Court  —  and  that  on  a  forty-one-year 
lease.   Again,  so  late  as  1733,  ^^^  ground-rent  of  Covent 

^  Concerning  land  values  at  this  time,  see  above,  p.  209. 

2  For  documents  see  Henslowe  Papers,  pp.  15-18,  108  ff.;  Warner,  Cata- 
logue oj Dulwich  College  Manuscripts,  pp.  230-239;  William  Young,  History  oj 
Dulwich  College,  II,  256  fF.   Cf.  Greg,  Henslowe's  Diary,  II,  56-57. 


212         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

Garden  Theatre  was  but  £ioo,  though  it  mounted  to 
almost  ten  times  that  figure  before  the  close  of  the  cen- 
tury.^ 

Such  information  as  has  come  down  to  us  concerning 
the  building  cost  of  the  early  Restoration  theatres,  sug- 
gests that  they  were  probably  not  so  very  much  more 
elaborate  and  elegant  than  the  late  Elizabethan  houses 
as  has  sometimes  been  supposed.  Restoration  playgoers, 
to  be  sure,  were  thoroughly  convinced  of  the  vast  superior- 
ity of  their  own  theatres,  but  it  is  a  question  whether  they 
were  always  well-informed  as  to  the  past,  or  disinterested 
in  passing  judgment  upon  it.  There  is  the  assertion  of 
Killigrew  to  Pepys  for  instance,  in  1667,  that  by  his  pains 
the  stage  had  become  "a  thousand  times  better  and  more 
glorious  than  ever  heretofore.  Now,  wax  candles  and 
many  of  them;  then,  not  above  three  pounds  of  tallow; 
now  all  things  civil,  no  rudeness  anywhere;  then,  as  in  a 
bear-garden;  then  two  or  three  fiddlers,  now,  nine  or  ten 
of  the  best;  then,  nothing  but  rushes  upon  the  ground  and 
every  thing  else  mean;  and  now,  all  otherwise;  then  the 
Queen  seldom  and  the  King  never  would  come;  now  not 
the  King  only,  but  all  civil  people  do  think  they  may 
come  as  well  as  any."  2  No  one  would  deny  that  the 
Restoration  brought  a  new  decorative  polish  and  bril- 
liance to  the  playhouses;  yet  it  will  appear  presently  that 
in  all  but  the  last  clause  of  this  statement  Killigrew  did 
less  than  justice  to  the  Elizabethan  houses.  So  far  as 
mere  building  outlay  went,  meanwhile,  we  saw  that  the 
new  Globe  and  the  new  Fortune  cost  their  owners  from 
£1,000  to  £1,400.  By  1663  the  purchasing  power  of 
money  had  declined  heavily,^  yet  Killigrew  and  his  part- 
ners paid  their  builders  only  £1,500  for  Drury  Lane  The- 

1  Cf.  Genest,  I,  43;  Lowe,  Betterton,  p.  99;  Fitzgerald,  I,  81-82;  11, 
373,  n.  (cf.  II,  66,  loi). 

2  Pepys,  February  12,  1667. 

'  Cf.  John  Wheatley,  Theory  oj  Money,  1807,  I,  248;  Cunningham,  Nell 
Gwynn,  p.  93;  Fitzgerald,  I,  90. 


,■  >^/////  (/<•  v/  fy'/z/rr/r  y/(/A '  //////  /////</  ^^^Y'- '  '^"  '^"'' ' 
.  /I  •  //'At//'  /'/  /'■'  t//r  I  T<  y//////,/  ////.  //'  y/^  > '  ^// v///  ■ ' 


THE  PLAYHOUSES  213 

atre,  and  they  were  able  to  get  that  house  rebuilt,  after 
the  fire  of  1673,  for  £2,400.*  The  chances  are,  too,  that 
D'Avenant's  first  theatre  in  Lincoln's  Inn  Fields  did  not 
cost  more  than  the  first  Drury  Lane,  for  his  theatre  is  said 
to  have  been  small  and  modest  —  certainly  as  compared 
with  Dorset  Garden  Theatre,  the  large  and  "gaudy  house 
with  scenes"  (as  Dryden  styled  it)  next  built  by  D'Ave- 
nant,  and  occupied  by  his  company  in  1671.  When  Rich 
was  silenced  in  1709,  he  and  his  fellow  petitioners  to 
Queen  Anne  asserted  that  Dorset  Garden  had  cost 
£5,000,  though  allowance  must  be  made  for  the  fact  that 
this  sum,  according  to  the  petitioners,  included  the  cost  of 
"the  gay  shows  and  gaudy  scenes"  for  which  this  house 
was  famous. 2  In  any  case,  much  money  had  been  lavished 
upon  it;  it  proved  too  large  both  for  its  players  and  its 
audiences,  and  after  the  union  of  the  companies  in  1682 
it  was  used  only  for  occasional  spectacular  and  operatic 
productions.^  As  for  the  second  theatre  in  Lincoln's  Inn 
Fields,  we  know  only  that  many  of  the  nobility  and 
gentry  subscribed  from  20  to  40  guineas  each  towards  its 
cost,  but  it  is  safe  to  infer  that  this  house  was  smaller  and 
less  expensive  than  Dorset  Garden,  particularly  in  view  of 
the  fact  that  the  subscription  for  the  stately  Haymarket 
—  to  which  the  Lincoln's  Inn  Fields  company  moved  in 
1705  —  amounted  to  only  £3,000.* 

With  the  coming  of  the  eighteenth  century,  however, 
playhouse  finance  began  to  be  high  finance  indeed.  In 
the  winter  of  1731-32  a  subscription  of  £6,000  was  raised 
"to  aid  Mr.  Rich  in  building  a  new  theatre  in  Covent 
Garden";  in  1767  the  house  and  patent  were  sold  for 
£60,000;  and  in  1792  £25,000  was  spent  for  alterations 

^  See  British  Museum  Addl.  MS.  20,726;  cf.  Fitzgerald,  II,  138  ff. 
2  British  Museum,  Addl.  MS.  20,726;  Malone,  III,  277,  285,  288;  Lowe, 
Betterton,  pp.  111-114;   Genest,  I,  121  fF. 
^  See  below,  p.  217. 
*  See  above,  p.  197. 


214         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

and  repairs.^  The  finances  of  Drury  Lane,  meanwhile, 
were  somewhat  more  conservatively  handled  —  partic- 
ularly in  Gibber's  time  and  Garrick's.  But  Old  Drury's 
capital  account  also  ran  into  the  tens  of  thousands,  and 
there  were  large  and  expensive  alterations  in  17 15,  1762, 
1765,  and  again  in  1775,  shortly  before  Garrick's  retire- 
ment. How  matters  went  in  Sheridan's  time  appears 
from  the  fact  that  in  1791,  while  the  house  was  being  re- 
built, "the  extraordinary  Expences  attending  the  tem- 
porary removal  of  the  Company"  to  the  Haymarket 
were  estimated  at  £11,000,  whereas  the  rebuilding 
swallowed  up  the  tremendous  sum  of  £150,000.^  It  is 
no  wonder  that  with  such  burdens  as  these  to  carry,  the 
managers  of  the  early  nineteenth  century  had  constantly 
to  wage  a  losing  battle  against  bankruptcy. 

We  must  return  presently  to  Pepys  and  to  certain 
other  aspects  of  playhouse  economy  in  the  Restoration, 
but  first  a  word  more  will  be  in  order  as  to  the  new  meth- 
ods of  financing  the  theatres.  With  the  close  of  the 
seventeenth  century  the  old  housekeepers  virtually  made 
their  exit.  In  both  houses  the  proprietary  shares  were  no 
longer  held  by  outside  investors.  At  one  of  them.  Rich 
and  his  son  had  sole  ownership  and  control;  at  the  other. 
Gibber  and  two  or  three  other  actors  ruled  supreme  over 
the  money-box  and  all  things  else.^  We  have  seen  that 
the  first  Drury  Lane  Theatre,  the  second  theatre  in  Lin- 
colns  Inn  Fields,  and  the  Haymarket  were  built  with  the 
aid  of  subscriptions  from  the  nobility  and  others  who  had 
money  to  lend.  These  subscriptions  were  certainly  not 
free-will  offerings,  though  it  is  true  that  the  security  was 
not  always  good.  The  enterprising  firm  which  rebuilt 
Drury  Lane  in  1673  was  compensated  for  the  first  £2,400 

1  Cf.  Oulton,  II,  116;  Fitzgerald,  II,  65,  238,  242;  PcTcy  Anecdotes, 
XXVII,  162;  Wyndham,  Annals  oj  Covent  Garden,  I,  21-24,  165-167;  Gar- 
rick's Poetical  Works,  1785,  II,  309  fF. 

2  Apology,  II,  175,  note;  Fitzgerald,  II,  234, 309-319,  339;  Oulton,  II,  100. 
'  See  above,  pp.  130-13 1. 


THE  PLAYHOUSES  215 

by  a  mortgage  which  allotted  to  it  a  first  claim  of  £3  los. 
from  the  daily  receipts,^  and  the  subscribers  or  "renters" 
of  the  later  playhouses  had  similar  returns.  The  house- 
keepers of  pre-Restoration  times  shared  what  remained 
after  expenses  were  deducted  from  their  portion  of  the 
takings;  the  new  renters,  on  the  other  hand,  received  a 
stipulated  sum  —  while  the  respective  managements  re- 
mained solvent.  This  daily  "rentage"  amounted  to 
£5  14J.  at  Drury  Lane  in  1677.  By  1791  it  had  gone  up 
to  £187  ioj.,2  and  eighteen  years  later  it  was  £6,500  a 
year  at  the  other  house.  The  renters,  moreover,  had  "  the 
liberty  of  seeing  the  plays"  gratis,  and  they  made  a  siz- 
able addition  to  the  ample  rolls  of  the  free  list.  We  shall 
see  presently  that  this  ancient  and  honorable  institution 
is  as  old  as  the  theatre  itself. 

Let  us  close  the  debit  side  of  the  ledger  for  the  moment, 
and  glance  at  certain  small  but  interesting  credit  items 
which  the  old  housekeepers,  as  well  as  the  new  patentees, 
managed  to  accumulate.  Among  the  incidental  revenues 
of  the  Elizabethan  owners  there  were,  first,  such  returns 
as  came  from  the  occasional  renting  of  their  houses  to 
amateurs"  (usually  'prentices),  fencers,  tumblers,  and 
other  miscellaneous  entertainers.  Not  the  least  inter- 
esting exhibition  of  them  all,  had  it  actually  come  to  pass, 
would  have  been  that  "Bear-garden  banquet  of  dainty 
conceits,"  the  proposed  wit  combat  at  the  Hope  between 
John  Taylor  the  Water  Poet  and  the  rascally  William 
Fennor,  "the  Kings  Maiesties  Riming  Poet,"  who,  as 
Taylor  tells  the  story,  ran  away  and  left  him,  on  the 
afternoon  of  October  7,  1614,  to  face  an  angry  audience 
which  had  paid  an  extra  (perhaps  a  double)  admission 

1  Contract  in  Fitzgerald,  I,  138. 

2  The  new  Drury  Lane  at  that  time  had  a  seating  capacity  of  4,000,  and  a 
full  house  was  supposed  to  bring  £700.  Unfortunately  the  theatre  did  not 
suffer  from  a  superfluity  of  patronage.  See  Fitzgerald,  I,  145;  II,  66,  loi, 
80,  339,  n.;  cf.  British  Museum  playbills,  Covent  Garden,  October  4, 
i8oq. 


2i6         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

fee.^  A  number  of  apprentices  played  The  Hog  hath  Lost 
his  Pearl  dit  the  Whitefriars  in  1613,2  and  in  1615  "some 
young  men  of  the  city"  acted  Hector  of  Germany  at  the 
Curtain.  About  a  hundred  and  forty  years  later,  —  on 
March  6,  1751,  to  be  exact,  —  Drury  Lane  advertised 
that  it  should  have  to  omit  its  regular  performance,  "the 
theatre  being  engaged  to  some  Gentlemen  and  Ladies  to- 
morrow evening  for  a  private  play."  This  was  a  per- 
formance of  Othello  in  the  presence  of  the  king  and 
a  brilliant  assembly.'  Lenten  oratorios  were  sung  at 
Covent  Garden  season  after  season.  People  came  to  hear 
them,  and  remained  long  enough,  at  all  events,  to  enable 
the  directors  of  the  oratorios  to  pay  the  management  its 
regular  fee  of  £50  per  night. ^  And  Drury  Lane  and 
Covent  Garden  had  not  all  these  incidental  profits  to 
themselves.  It  is  quite  certain  that  Samuel  Foote  did  not 
suffer  financially  by  letting  his  Little  Theatre  in  the  Hay  ^ 
to  the  puppet-shows,  during  the  recurring  winter  seasons 
of  his  discontent,  when  he  himself,  under  his  summer 
patent,  was  condemned  to  silence.^  And  so  it  had  been  in 
the  Elizabethan  age.  Henslowe  in  the  old  days  had  made 
the  most  of  just  such  incidental  crumbs  of  comfort.  Wit- 
ness his  entry  of  40j-.  to  the  credit  of  the  Rose  Theatre  on 
November  4,  1598,  when  "Jemes  cranwigge  .  .  .  played 
his  callenge  in  my  howsse."  "^  If  we  may  believe  Thomas 
Dekker,8  James  Cranwigge  was  not  the  only  fencer  who 
played  his  challenge  in  the  Elizabethan  theatres,  and 
later  members  of  this  profession  held  forth  upon  the  stage 

^  Taylor's  Works,  1630,  p.  143  (305). 

^  Reliquice  Wottoniana,  3d  ed.,  1672,  p.  402. 

3  Genest,  IV,  325. 

*  See  British  Museum  Playbills,  Covent  Garden,  particularly  those  of 
February  20  and  March  2,  1790;  cf.  Observations  on  Statement  oj  Differences 
at  Covent  Garden,  p.  31. 

*  See  above,  pp.  134,  136. 
'  Fitzgerald,  II,  230. 

7  Diary,  I,  98. 

*  See  his  Newesjrom  Hell,  1606  (Grosart,  II,  92). 


.__g. 


THE  PLAYHOUSES  217 

long  after  the  Restoration.  In  the  London  Spy  of  1699, 
Edward  Ward  deals  at  length  with  one  of  the  playhouses 
of  that  time,  and  intimates  that  it,  like  the  old  Rose,  was 
not  altogether  sacred  to  the  sock  and  buskin.  The  Spy 
and  his  companion,  in  the  course  of  their  rambles  over 
London,  come  to  "a  Stately  Edifice  (the  Front  supported 
by  Lofty  Columns)  ":  — 

1  enquired  of  my  Friend  what  Magnanimous  Don  Cressus 
Resided  in  this  Noble  and  Delightful  Mansion?  Who  told  me, 
No  Body  as  he  knew  on,  except  Rats  and  Mice;  and  perhaps 
an  old  Superannuated  Jack  Pudding,  to  look  after  it,  and  to 
take  Care  that  no  Decay'd  Lover  of  the  Drama,  should  get  in 
and  steal  away  the  Poets  Pictures,  and  Sell  'em  to  some  Up- 
holsterers for  Roman  Emperours;  I  suppose  there  being  little 
else  to  lose,  except  Scenes,  Machines,  or  some  such  Jim- 
cracks.  For  this,  says  he,  is  one  of  the  Theaters,  but  now 
wholly  abandon'd  by  the  Players;  and,  'tis  thought,  will  in  a 
little  time  be  puU'd  down,  if  it  is  not  bought  by  some  of  our 
Dissenting  Brethren,  and  converted  to  a  more  Pious  use, 
that  might  in  part  atone  for  the  sundry  Transgressions  oc- 
casion'd  by  the  levity  which  the  Stage  of  late  have  been  so 
greatly  subject  to. 

The  theatre  meant  was  Dorset  Garden.  In  spite  of 
Ward's  prophecy,  the  players  continued  to  use  it  oc- 
casionally until  1706,  but  meanwhile  it  served  as  head- 
quarters for  just  such  persons  as  the  champion  whom  the 
Spy  saw,  somewhat  later,  in  the  midst  of  a  mob  of  ad- 
mirers: "one  of  the  Prize-Fighting  Gladiators,  from 
Dorset  Garden  Theater,  where  he  had  been  exercising 
the  several  Weapons  of  Defence  with  his  Bold  Challenger 
upon  a  clear  Stage,  without  Favour."  ^  The  theatre  was 
demolished  in  1709.2 

*  The  London  Spy,  Parts  vii,  xviii  (May,  1698-9;  April,  1700),  ed.  1703, 
pp.  148,  426. 

2  The  Gazette  d-la-Mode,  No.  3,  May  26,  1709  (quoted  by  Haslewood, 
Gentleman's  Magazine,  LXXXIV,  ii,  10). 


2i8         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

So  many  contemporary  allusions  to  the  sale  of  wine, 
beer,  ale,  nuts,  pippins,  playbooks,  cards,  and  tobacco  in 
the  Elizabethan  playhouses  have  been  collected  and 
printed  by  Malone  and  Collier  that  it  is  hardly  necessary 
to  deal  with  the  subject  here.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  this 
brisk  trade  won  admiring  notice  from  foreign  visitors  and 
roused  the  ire  of  Prynne  and  his  ilk.^  A  point  that  has  not 
been  emphasized  is  that  the  housekeepers  must  have 
realized  a  good  profit  from  the  sale  of  these  commodities, 
—  particularly  from  the  product  of  the  "tap-houses." 
There  is  documentary  evidence  to  show  that  the  Fortune, 
the  Cockpit,  the  Rose,  and  the  Globe  had  such  establish- 
ments, and  it  is  a  safe  guess  that  the  rest  of  the  theatres 
were  not  without  them.  In  any  case,  the  tap-houses  in 
the  London  theatres  of  to-day  score  another  point  for  the 
longevity  of  theatrical  tradition,  if  not  for  the  immor- 
tality of  thirst.  Be  it  noted,  meanwhile,  that  the  Globe 
actors  of  1635  estimated  the  housekeepers'  profit  on  "  the 
tap  howses  and  a  tenement  and  garden  belonging  to  the 
premisses"  at  between  twenty  and  thirty  pounds  a  year. 
Somewhat  earlier  (in  1608)  one  Martin  Slater,  who  was 
manager  of  the  children's  company  at  the  Whitefriars, 
had  seen  to  it  that  all  the  profits  on  the  sale  of  "wine, 
beere,  ale,  tobacco,  ...  or  any  such  commoditie"  were 
contractually  assigned  to  him  alone,  and  Cholmley,  Hens- 
lowe's  partner  at  the  Rose,  had  the  same  privilege  written 
into  his  agreement  in  1587.^ 

A  passage  from  The  Actors'  Remonstrance  (1644),  a 
document  full  of  interesting  material  concerning  condi- 
tions just  before  the  close  of  the  theatres,  deserves  quota- 
tion here  because  it  suggests,  first,  that  the  companies 
sometimes  shared  with  the  housekeepers  the  profits  of 

1  Malone,  III,  142;  Collier,  III,  137;  Anglia,  XXII,  459. 

2  Henslowe  Papers,  pp.  4,  96;  Hailiwell-Phillipps,  I,  313;  Greenstreet, 
New  Shakspere  Society  Transactions ,  1887-92,  pp.  271,  275;  Calendar  oj  State 
Papers,  Domestic,  i6jc},  p.  358. 


THE  PLAYHOUSES  219 

some  of  these  perquisites,  and  secondly,  because  it  hints 
at  an  abuse  which  seems  to  have  come  back  in  full  flush 
after  the  Restoration.  In  their  Remonstrance  the  actors 
pray  solemnly  to  Phoebus  and  the  Muses,  and  promise 
to  atone  for  their  sins  if  only  they  may  have  another 
chance.  "The  abuses  in  tobacco,"  they  promise,  "shall 
be  reformed."  "The  Tobacco-men,  that  used  to  walk 
up  and  downe,  selling  for  a  penny-pipe,  that  which  was 
not  worth  twelve-pence  an  horse-load"  shall  be  better 
instructed,  and  "none  vended,  nor  so  much  as  in  the 
three-penny  galleries,  unlesse  of  the  pure  Spanish  leafe."  ^ 
In  Restoration  times  and  during  the  century  that  fol- 
lowed, all  the  old  commodities,  but  especially  oranges, 
apples  and  cake,  nonpareils,  peaches,  snuff,  prologue  and 
epilogue  sheets,  programmes,  and  playbooks  or  "  books  o' 
the  songs,"  were  sold  by  the  orange  girls,  —  whose  serv- 
ices, indeed,  seem  to  have  been  utilized  also  in  less 
innocent  transactions.  Their  "mistress  or  superior," 
says  Peter  Cunningham,  in  telling  of  Nell  Gwynn,  the 
orange  girl  par  excellence ^  "was  familiarly  known  as 
Orange  Moll,  and  filled  the  same  sort  of  office  in  the 
theatre  that  the  mother  of  the  maids  occupied  at  court 
among  the  maids  of  honor."  ^  A  century  after  Nell 
Gwynn,  the  orange  girl  was  still  very  much  in  demand, 
nor  had  her  work  changed,  —  if  we  may  judge  from 
Foote's  mimicry  of  Peg  Woffington  "in  the  squeaking 
pipe"  of  "an  orange  woman  to  the  Playhouse":  "Would 
you  have  some  oranges  ?  Have  some  orange-chips,  ladies 
and  gentlemen!  —  Would  you  have  some  nonpareils?  — 
Would  you  have  a  bill  of  the  play?"  '  The  orange  girls 
receive  rather  vigorous  mention,  once  more,  in  a  pam- 
phlet of  the  year  1768,  a  vitriolic  commentary  upon  The 
Conduct  of  the  Four  Managers  of  Covent-Garden  Theatre y  by 

1  Hazlittj  English  Drama  and  Stage,  pp.  264-265. 

*  Nell  Gwynn,  p.  12. 

*  Quoted  by  Tate  Wilkinson,  Memoirs,  I,  25. 


220         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

A  Frequenter  of  that  Theatre,  who  complains  of  the  early 
opening  of  the  doors  and  the  late  start  of  performance?, 
and  incidentally  charges  the  managers  with  even  more 
extravagant  profiteering  than  that  hinted  at  in  The 
Actors'  Remonstrance:  —  "I  am  sorry,  nay,  I  am  ashamed 
for  you,"  writes  the  complainant, 

to  declare  that  the  only  reason  to  be  assigned  why  you  so  im- 
pose on  the  publick,  is  the  benefit  accruing  to  you  from  selling 
tea,  coffee,  and  fruit,  by  means  of  the  eight  bawling  women 
who  constantly  attend  at  each  of  your  houses,  often  to  the 
great  incommoding  of  the  audience.  I  have  been  positively 
assured  that  you  are  mean  enough  to  take  of  each  of  them  a 
pretty  considerable  sum  yearly  for  the  liberty  you  allow  them 
to  come  in,  to  sell  their  goods;  which  goods,  nevertheless, 
they  must  first  purchase  of  you,  or  your  deputies,  at  so  ex- 
travagant a  rate,  that  ...  an  orange,  at  a  shilling,  is  scarce 
worth  the  selling.  They  take  care,  however,  to  demand  so 
much  ...  for  every  article  of  their  bad  commodity,  (and 
they  always  sell  the  very  worst  of  the  kind)  that  often  one 
cannot  help  wondering  at  their  impudence,  in  asking  about 
ten  times  more  for  trash  within  doors  than  is  paid  for  good 
fruit  without.  .  .  .  And  from  the  necessity  of  their  having 
some  considerable  time  to  teaze  and  importune  the  people, 
who  come  to  see  the  play,  it  is,  that  you  open  your  doors  two 
whole  hours  before  it  begins;  without  which  their  calling 
would  not  bring  near  so  much  into  your  respective  treasuries 
as  it  now  does.^ 

It  is  possible,  of  course,  that  this  writer  exaggerates, 
but  we  know  that  Pepys  had  to  pay  sixpence  apiece  for 
his  playhouse  oranges  in  the  sixties  of  the  preceding  cen- 
tury, and  that  the  charge  for  playbooks  went  up  from 
sixpence  in  Shakspere's  time  to  eighteenpence  in  the 
Restoration. 2  Perhaps,  since  the  cost  of  everything  con- 
nected with  the  theatre  —  playhouse-building,  play 
producing,  theatre  tickets,  and  all  the  rest  —  had  soared 

1  Pp.  18-19.     *  Pepys,  May  II,  1668;  pp.  50,  60,  above. 


'xJ'A^^a^-eySi^  -ut'^-u/SA 


Wv'r  A  Btjj,  op  Tin-:   ■p:i,/VY 


THE  PLAYHOUSES  221 

sky-high,  it  was  not  unnatural  that  the  price  of  cakes  and 
ale  ^  kept  pace.  However  that  may  be,  he  who  would  ob- 
serve for  himself  still  another  survival  from  the  days  of 
yore  need  merely  go  to  the  pit  or  gallery  of  almost  any 
London  theatre.  Orange  Moll,  perhaps,  will  not  be  pres- 
ent, but  her  great-granddaughters  will  be  there,  their 
baskets  still  "laden  with  Pippins  and  Hesperian  Fruit." 
He  may  shut  his  eyes  and  imagine  that  Richard  Burbage 
is  about  to  make  his  bow  as  the  Prince  of  Denmark,  or 
Nell  Gwynn  her  exit  in  a  rollicking  epilogue.  At  all 
events,  he  may  still  purchase  his  orange,  his  programme, 
or  his  "pipe  of  to  '." 

2.   Box-Office  and  Repertory 

About  that  important  institution  known  nowadays  as 
the  box-office  there  lingers  for  all  those  blessed  with  a  nor- 
mal share  of  curiosity,  impecuniosity,  and  youthfulness  of 
heart,  an  atmosphere  of  mysterious  fascination  second 
only  to  that  of  the  footlights  themselves.  It  is  because 
every  one,  even  the  youngest  of  gallery  gods,  under- 
stands more  or  less  that  through  the  box-office  flows  the 
life-giving  current  that  keeps  the  footlights  burning,  and 
that  the  man  behind  the  man  in  the  box-office  is  the  true 
deus  ex  machina,  —  the  divinity  that  plans,  shapes,  and 
controls  the  destinies  of  the  stage.  Yet  we  calmly  take 
for  granted  almost  all  his  ingenious  devices  for  our  com- 
fort and  for  the  acquisition  of  our  money.  Few  of  us 
know  or  remember  that  they  are  ingenious,  that  some  of 
them  are  marvelous  improvements  over  the  arrange- 

^  Cf.  Prologue  to  Motteux's  Island  Princess  (1699): 

Ye  Gallery  haunters,  who  Love  to  Lie  Snug, 

And  munch  Apples  or  Cakes  while  some  Neighbour  you  hug. 

On  the  sale  of  playbooks,  prologues,  etc.,  during  the  next  century  see  also 
British  Museum  Playbills,  Covent  Garden,  January  27,  1786,  May  6,  1790, 
March  6,  1789;  Cross,  Fielding,  I,  99;  O'KeeflFe,  Epilogue  to  The  Toy 
(1789)- 


222         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

ments  that  satisfied  our  ancestors.  The  Elizabethans,  for 
example,  had  no  box-office,  theatre  tickets,  programmes, 
or  reserved  seats,  properly  speaking,  and  the  last  and 
greatest  of  these  blessings  was  unknown  —  except  to 
princes,  dominions,  powers,  and  holders  of  private  boxes 
—  even  in  the  eighteenth  century.  Such  refinements 
came  late,  for  the  theatre,  like  all  great  institutions,  was 
not  born  full-blown;  it  grew.  On  the  other  hand,  many 
box-office  customs  and  devices  of  to-day  date  back 
directly  to  Shakspere's  time;  and  many  of  the  box-office 
problems  of  old  remain  essentially  unchanged.  For  ex- 
ample, the  Elizabethan  managers  had  to  arrange  a  scale 
of  prices  for  ordinary  and  extraordinary  occasions  that 
would  be  consonant  at  once  with  the  means  of  their  au- 
diences and  the  offerings  of  their  competitors.  It  was  as 
delicate  a  problem  in  Shakspere's  time  or  Gibber's  as  it  is 
to-day.  Again,  since  the  old  managers,  as  well  as  the  new, 
desired  a  full  and  understanding  house,  they  were  com- 
pelled to  take  account  of  prevailing  taste  and  custom  as 
regards  the  make-up  of  the  repertory;  and  they  had  to 
advertise  their  wares  by  all  available  methods. 

Even  within  the  last  few  years  it  has  been  held  that  the 
rates  of  admission  at  the  Elizabethan  theatres  are  still 
in  doubt,  and  that  "there  are  no  very  satisfying  details 
of  the  cost  of  theatre-going  yet  found."  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  Malone  and  Collier  long  since  collected  a  score  or 
more  of  allusions  to  the  subject  in  Elizabethan  plays  and 
pamphlets,  and  their  citations  brought  the  matter  well 
beyond  the  realm  of  conjecture.  For  convenient  refer- 
ence, however,  I  have  reproduced  in  Appendix  II  the 
passages  quoted  by  Malone  and  Collier,  adding  a  number 
of  further  allusions  that  bear  upon  the  subject.  This 
evidence  fixes  pretty  definitely  the  rates  at  the  public  and 
private  theatres  in  general,  and  throws  some  light  upon 
special  rates  and  conditions  at  one  theatre  or  another. 
A  summary  of  the  evidence  will  suffice  here. 


THE  PLAYHOUSES  223 

The  earliest  known  allusion  to  Elizabethan  theatrical 
rates  is  that  in  A  Second  and  Third  Blast  of  Retrait  from 
Plaies  and  Theaters  (1580),  the  author  of  which  ad- 
monished the  playgoers  of  his  time  in  vigorous  terms. 
"Alas,"  he  wrote,  "what  folic  is  in  you,  to  purchase 
with  a  penie  damnation  to  your  selues.  .  .  .  None  delight 
in  those  spectacles,  but  such  as  would  be  made  spec- 
tacles." ^  The  passage  hits  particularly  those  who  bought 
their  admission  at  the  cheapest  price  of  all,  —  the  penny 
groundlings,  the  "grave  understanders"  of  the  pit.  Ac- 
cording to  Lambarde's  Perambulation  of  Kent  (1596),  all 
who  went  to  Paris  Garden,  the  Belle  Savage,  or  the 
Theatre,  paid  as  they  entered  "one  pennie  at  the  gate," 
and  then,  clearly  if  they  wished  better  places,  "another 
at  the  entrie  of  the  Scaffolde"  (or  balcony),  "and  the 
thirde  for  a  quiet  standing."  ^  At  later  or  more  preten- 
tious houses,  or  at  first  performances,  higher  rates  were 
often  charged.  Two  further  quotations,  from  Jonson 
and  Prynne,  will  indicate  the  range  of  prices.  The  Jonson 
passage  appears  in  the  Induction  to  Bartholomew  Fair^. 
and  undoubtedly  has  to  do  with  the  rates  at  the  opening 
performance  of  that  play  at  the  Hope,  in  1614.  It  sug- 
gests an  agreement  providing  that  "every  person  here 
have  his  or  their  free-will  of  censure,  to  like  or  dislike  at 
their  own  charge.  ...  It  shall  be  lawful  for  any  man  to 
judge  his  six-pen 'worth,  his  twelve-pen'worth,  so  to  his 
eighteen-pence,  two  shillings,  half-a-crown,  to  the  value 
of  his  place,  provided  always  his  place  get  not  above  his 
wit."  ^  Prynne's  word  on  the  subject  is  important  be- 
cause it  gives  an  almost  complete  list  of  prices  as  late  as 

1  Reprint  in  Hazlitt,  pp.  129-130. 

2  P.  ^32- 

^  It  seems  altogether  likely  that  these  were  the  "extraordinary"  rates 
sometimes  charged  at  first  performances  (see  below,  p.  229).  Such  high  prices 
are  not  elsewhere  mentioned  in  connection  with  the  public  theatres,  though 
they  were  regularly  charged  at  private  houses.  The  Hope  was  an  unpreten- 
tious public  theatre  used  for  bear-baiting  as  well  as  for  plays. 


224         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

1633,  when  Histrio-Mastix  was  written.  "How  many  are 
there,"  he  queries,  much  in  the  tone  of  the  author  of  the 
Second  and  Third  Blast,  "who  according  to  their  severall 
quaHties  spend  2d.  3d.  ^d.  6d.  I2d.  i8d.  2s.  and  sometimes 
4  or  5  shilHngs  at  a  Play-house,  day  by  day,  if  Coach-hire, 
Boate-hire,  Tobacco,  Wine,  Beere,  and  such  like  vaine 
expences  which  Playes  doe  usally  occasion,  be  cast  into 
the  reckoning?"  ^  This  passage,  together  with  another 
allusion  to  threepenny  boxes  in  The  Actors'  Remon- 
strance (i644),2  proves  that  places  at  twopence  or  three- 
pence could  be  had  until  the  very  closing  of  the  theatres. 
We  shall  see  that  after  the  Restoration  the  cheapest 
places  cost  from  four  to  six  times  as  much. 

The  evidence  concerning  Elizabethan  prices  is  fairly 
complete,  though  one  has  to  piece  it  together  from  many 
sources.  It  should  be  observed,  for  example,  that  besides 
the  cheap  gallery  "rooms"  at  twopence,  others  were  to  be 
had  at  threepence,  fourpence,  and  sixpence,  and  that 
half-a-crown  was  the  upper  limit,  —  for  Prynne's  higher 
figures  cover  extras.  Certain  additional  conclusions  fol- 
low. In  the  first  place,  the  rates  were  generally  higher  at 
"private"  theatres  like  the  Blackfriars  and  the  Cockpit 
than  at  the  Globe,  the  Fortune,  and  other  "public" 
theatres.  Thus,  a  twopenny  admission  to  The  Theatre  in 
1589  gave  the  purchaser  a  place  rated  at  fourpence  in 
St.  Paul's,  a  private  theatre.  Again,  except  at  first  per- 
formances, we  do  not  hear  of  public-theatre  prices  higher 
than  a  shilling,  while  there  are  many  allusions  to  seats  at 
eighteenpence,  two  shillings,  and  half-a-crown  at  the 
private  houses.  In  short,  admissions  at  theatres  of  the 
Blackfriars  type  ranged  from  sixpence  to  half-a-crown, 
while  the  public  theatres  charged  from  a  penny  to  a  shill- 
ing. The  reasons  for  the  higher  rates  at  the  private 
houses  are  obvious.  They  were  smaller  than  the  others, 
the  entire  audience  was  seated,  and  the  expense  of  arti- 

*  Histrio-Mastix,  p.  322.  ^  See  above,  p.  219. 


THE  PLAYHOUSES  225 

ficial  lighting  and  heating  had  to  be  met.^  It  should  be 
noted  also  that  the  private  houses  in  particular  derived 
additional  revenue  from  the  sale  of  stage  stools,  and  that 
all  the  theatres  had  private  boxes  to  let. 

In  the  second  place,  the  usual  statement  that  the 
Elizabethan  managers  gradually  advanced  their  prices 
as  money  became  more  abundant,  though  correct  as  far 
as  it  goes,  requires  qualification.  True,  the  allusions  to 
high  prices  are  more  plentiful  in  Prynne's  time  than  in 
that  of  James  Burbage;  but  it  is  clear  that,  whereas  the 
gallants  in  the  boxes  had  to  pay  more  and  more  as  time 
went  on,  the  groundlings  and  gallery  commoners  could 
see  "a  play  for  twopence  with  a  jig  to  boot"^  until  the 
very  closing  of  the  theatres.  The  managers  took  care 
that  playgoing  did  not  become  too  expensive  for  the 
multitude,  and  thus  the  Elizabethan  theatre  retained  to 
the  end  its  hold  upon  that  not  unimportant  part  of  the 
public  which  enjoys  plays  but  cannot  pay  much  to  see 
them. 

In  this  respect  as  in  others  the  Restoration  managers 
did  not  altogether  succeed  in  living  up  to  Elizabethan 
traditions!  One  simple  but  important  reason  for  the 
small  audiences  of  which  Dryden,  Shadwell  and  other 
playwrights  complained  in  their  prologues  and  epilogues,^ 
is  that  the  managers  charged  too  much.   As  Fielding  put 

it, 

In  former  times, 
When  better  actors  acted  better  plays. 
The  town  paid  less.* 

In  the  Restoration  it  was  asked  to  pay  so  much  that  the 
poorer  classes  could  not  afford  to  go  to  the  theatre  so 

'  See  Appendix  II,  pp.  307  fF.  Cf.  Archer  and  Lawrence,  in  Shakespeare  s 
England,  II,  307. 

2  See  Appendix  II,  p.  305. 

^  See  above,  pp.  126,  79. 

*  Eurydice  Hiss'd,  1737,  quoted  by  Genest,  VIII,  175. 


226         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

often  —  and  a  half-filled  gallery,  then  as  now,  meant  an 
empty  house  ninety-nine  times  in  a  hundred. 

As  early  as  1658,  when  D'Avenant  was  making  his  first 
experiments  towards  a  revival  of  the  drama,  he  suggested 
indirectly  that  the  day  of  twopenny  admissions  was  gone, 
once  and  for  all.  "Notwithstanding  the  great  expence 
necessary  to  scenes,"  he  wrote  in  an  advertisement  ap- 
pended to  his  Cruelty  of  the  Spaniards  in  Peru,  "there  is 
good  provision  made  of  places  for  a  shilling."  ^  Three 
years  later  Anthony  Wood  at  Oxford  saw  seventeen 
plays  of  Fletcher,  Shirley,  and  others  in  twelve  days,  and 
about  half  the  time  he  managed  to  get  in  for  sixpence.^ 
In  London,  however,  a  shilling  was  the  lowest  rate  from 
the  very  beginning  of  the  Restoration.  A  shilling  it  re- 
mained in  Swift's  time;  for  when  the  three  brothers  oi  A 
Tale  of  a  Tub  were  at  their  lowest  ebb  of  fortune  (before 
they  had  taken  to  wearing  the  current  fashion  in  shoulder- 
knots),  they  met  "in  their  walks  with  forty  mortifications 
and  indignities.  If  they  went  to  the  playhouse,  the 
doorkeeper  showed  them  to  the  Twelve-penny  Gallery." 
And  a  shilling  it  is  in  most  of  the  London  theatres  to-day, 
for  as  time  went  on,  the  managers  learned  their  lesson. 
The  shilling  is  smaller  to-day  and  less  portentous  than  in 
Pepys's  time;  the  shilling  gallery  therefore,  is  one  of  the 
great  comforts,  one  of  the  crowning  glories  of  present-day 
London.  Lovely  are  the  flowers  of  Kew  Gardens,  vener- 
able the  old  gray  stones  of  the  Tower  and  the  quiet,  holy 
nooks  of  Westminster  Abbey,  —  but  the  heart  of  London 
beats  loudest  in  the  shilling  gallery. 

More  than  one  commentator  of  Restoration  times  pro- 
tested against  the  high  cost  of  theatre-going.  Sometime 
before  1674,  for  instance,  the  Earl  of  Clarendon  scored 
the  improvidence  of  the  ordinary  citizen  who  would  often 
spend  "  a  shilling  to  see  a  Play  when  he  hath  not  gotten  so 

1  Dramatic  Works,  IV,  4. 

*  Life  and  Times,  ed.  A.  Clark,  I,  405-406. 


THE  PLAYHOUSES  227 

much  that  Day  to  support  his  Wife  and  Children."  ^ 
But  the  plaints  of  the  poets  and  Pepys's  frequent  allu- 
sions to  thin  houses,  point  their  own  moral.  The  ordinary 
citizen  did  not  go  so  often  at  a  shilling  as  his  father  and 
grandfather  had  done  at  a  penny  or  twopence.  The  new 
drama,  moreover,  was  too  much  preoccupied  with  the 
gallantries  and  foibles  of  the  relatively  small  circle  of 
court  folk.  It  did  not  draw  the  multitude,  and  the  the- 
atres suffered  accordingly.  I  have  said  that  the  man- 
agers gradually  learned  their  lesson.  Later,  when  some 
of  them  were  tempted  to  forget,  and  tried  to  raise  the 
prices  of  the  cheaper  admissions,  costly  riots  reenforced 
old  truths  by  modern  instances.^  So  it  is  that  the  shilling 
gallery  is  still  the  shilling  gallery,  while  half-a-crown  still 
buys  admission  to  the  pit,  as  it  did  when  Pepys  went  to 
the  theatre.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  however,  the  frugal 
Pepys  contented  himself  with  the  shilling  gallery  in  his 
early  days,  and  with  the  eighteenpenny  gallery  later,^ 
though  it  galled  him  to  be  seen  there  by  the  prodigal 
junior  clerks  of  his  office  who  lorded  it  in  the  pit.'* 

It  is  well  to  note  that  by  this  time  the  pit,  formerly  the 
resort  of  the  penny  groundlings,  who  stood  there  with  as 
much  comfort  as  they  could,  had  been  furnished  with 

^  Clarendon,  Dialogue  Concerning  Education,  Miscellaneous  Works,  1751, 

P-  343- 

2  See  below,  pp.  229,  n.  2,  232  fF. 

^  On  the  18^.  places  see  Shadwell's  Sullen  Lovers,  act  iii:  "'Tis  true  I  sate 
in  the  Eighteen-Pence  Gallery,  but  I  was  so  far  from  railing  against  your 
Play,  that  I  cry'd  it  up  as  high  as  I  could"  {Works,  ed.  1720,  I,  58).  In  Sir 
Barnaby  Whigg  (1681),  act  ii,  Tom  D'Urfey  pays  his  respects  to  "a  tawdry 
creature  in  the  18  penny  Gallery"  (1681  quarto,  p.  18).  See  also  Wycherley's 
Country  Wife,  act  i  {Plays,  ed.  1731,  p.  152);  Ward,  The  London  Spy,  1700, 
Part  xvi  (ed.  1703,  p.  389).  The  half-crown  places  are  mentioned  also  in  the 
Prologue  to  D'Urfey's  Virtuous  Wife  (1680),  by  Lord  Chesterfield  in  his 
speech  against  the  Licensing  Act  of  1743  (ed.  1772,  p.  22),  and  in  the  Pro- 
logue to  Crowne's  City  Politicks  (1683): 

Heaven  knows  what  sums  the  Cause  has  cost  the  town, 

Here  you  may  see  it  all  for  half-a-crown. 

^  McAfee,  pp.  81,  310,  93. 


228  SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

benches;  besides  it  had  become  more  expensive  than  the 
galleries,  and  so  it  gradually  attracted  the  more  fashion- 
able part  of  the  audience.  In  1668  Pepys  still  complained 
of  a  "mighty  company  of  mean  people"  in  the  pit,  but  in 
1674  one  Samuel  Vincent  presented  the  matter  in  a  some- 
what different  light.  In  that  year  appeared  Samuel  Vin- 
cent's modernized  version  of  Dekker's  GulFs  Horn  Book. 
The  new  document  pays  tribute  to  the  growing  dignity  of 
the  pit  and  shows  incidentally  that  by  this  time  theatre 
tickets  had  come  into  use.^  Of  these  Dekker  had  said  not 
a  word.  His  gallant  is  to  pay  the  "gatherer"  on  entering 
and  then  is  to  hire  a  stool  and  take  his  seat  upon  the 
stage  —  "on  the  very  Rushes  where  the  Commedy  is  to 
daunce."  And  Dekker  enumerates  the  advantages  that 
the  fop  derives  from  such  a  station:  "Do  but  cast  vp  a 
reckoning,  what  large  cummings  in  are  pursd  vp  by 
sitting  on  the  Stage."  ^  Vincent  takes  full  account  of  the 
changed  conditions.  He  suggests  that  "our  Gallant 
(having  paid  his  half  crown,  and  given  the  Door-keeper 
his  Ticket)  presently  advance  himself  into  the  middle  of 
the  Pit.  .  .  .  And  that  I  may  incourage  our  Gallant  not 
like  the  Trades-man  to  save  a  shilling  and  so  sit  but  in  the 
Middle-Gallery,  let  him  but  consider  what  large  comings- 
in  are  pursed  up  sitting  in  the  Pit."  ^ 

This  passage,  with  many  other  allusions  of  the  time, 
shows  further,  not  only  that  the  cheap  places  had  be- 
come more  expensive,  but  that  the  whole  scale  of  prices 
had  risen.  Curiously  enough  the  increase  was  compara- 
tively light  in  the  case  of  the  better  places.  In  the  second 
act  of  Shadwell's  Sullen  Lovers  (1668)  we  hear  of  a  spec- 
tacular play  at  "  t'other  house  ...  a  rare  Play,  with  a 
Jigg  in't,  would  do  your  heart  good  to  see  it;  but  if  there 
were  nothing  else  in't,  you  might  have  your  four  Shillings 

^  See  below,  pp.  263  fF.      ^  The  Guls  Horne-booke,  1609,  chap.  6,  p.  28. 
^  The  Young  Gallant's  Academy,  1674,  chap.  5  (in  McKerrow's  edition  of 
The  Gull's  Hornbook,  p.  105). 


"v,  ^-"1RJC\'X  PLF,^^     I 


> 


yy//^y/^//^///M^'/i^  "^yrr//. 


THE  PLAYHOUSES  229 

out  in  Thunder  and  Lightning,"  ^  —  that  is,  if  one  wished 
to  sit  in  a  box.  Before  the  closing  of  the  theatres  box 
seats  had  cost  from  a  shilling  to  half  a  crown;  afterwards 
they  sold  at  four  shillings.  In  other  words,  whereas  the 
Restoration  managers  made  the  quality  in  the  boxes  pay 
only  about  double,  they  charged  their  poor  gallery  patrons 
five  or  six  times  as  much  as  in  the  old  days.  The  greatest 
burden,  in  short,  was  placed  upon  those  least  able  to  bear 
it.  This  error  was  avoided  by  later  managers.  With  but 
few  exceptions,  the  Restoration  prices  —  a  shilling  for  the 
upper  gallery,  the  middle  gallery  at  eighteenpence,  pit  at 
half-a-crown,  and  boxes  at  four  shillings  —  held  good  al- 
most to  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century;  2  and  since 
then  the  larger  proportionate  increase  has  fallen  upon  the 
better  places. 

I  have  left  out  of  account  thus  far  one  point  which  has 
an  important  bearing  upon  these  matters,  —  namely, 
that  in  Queen  Elizabeth's  day,  as  well  as  in  Queen  Vic- 
toria's, the  theatres  raised  their  prices  on  special  occa- 
sions, particularly  at  a  first  performance.  Here,  then,  is 
another  practice  of  our  own  day  and  moment  which  is 
rooted  in  the  dark  backward  and  abysm  of  time.  Until 
recently,  investigators  were  uncertain  whether  it  was 
known  "in  the  proper  Shaksperean  time,"  ^  but  conclu- 
sive evidence  has  been  found  which  establishes  its  early 
date.  Double  prices  were  sometimes  charged  at  new  plays 

1  Quarto  1668,  p.  25.  For  additional  material  on  Restoration  rates,  see 
Lowe,  Betterton,  pp.  18  ff.;  Genest,  VIII,  177;  Downes  (ed.  Waldron),  p.  56, 
n.;  Victor,  I,  43  ff.;  Button  Cook,  p.  79. 

2  In  1792,  when  Covent  Garden  had  been  rebuilt  at  great  expense,  the 
management  attempted  to  abolish  the  shilling  gallery.  The  proposal  met 
with  riotous  opposition.  Consequently,  though  the  charges  for  boxes  and 
pit  were  advanced  to  6s.,  and  3^.  Gd.,  respectively,  the  shilling  gallery  was 
restored,  and  remains  to  this  day.  Cf.  H.  S.  Wyndham,  Annals  of  Covent 
Garden  Theatre,  I,  255-256.  Concerning  Drury  Lane's  attempt  to  raise 
prices  at  this  time,  see  Genest,  VII,  45. 

^  Mantzius,  History  oj  Theatrical  Art,  III,  iii;  Greg,  Henslowe's  Diary, 

n,  135. 


230         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

at  least  as  early  as  1585,  for  a  certain  Samuel  Kiechel, 
who  visited  London  that  year  and  described  its  theatres, 
recorded  the  fact  that  he  had  to  pay  double  at  first  per- 
formances.^ The  rates  were  not  invariably  doubled/  — 
for  Dekker's  Gull  paid  but  a  shilling  for  a  place  in  the 
lords'  room  "at  a  new  play,"  ^  —  but  there  can  be  no 
doubt  that  they  often  were.  Henslowe's  average  receipts 
for  several  first  performances  between  November  8  and 
16,  1594,  were  more  than  twice  as  large  as  his  average 
takings  for  the  old  plays  given  during  that  time.*  Fur- 
thermore, double  rates  were  certainly  charged  at  the  first 
performances  of  some  of  Jonson's  plays  and  at  the  Fen- 
nor-Taylor  wit  combat  of  1614.-^  And  the  practice  is 
once  more  alluded  to  in  the  first  act  of  Marmion's  Fine 
Companion^  acted  about  1633:  —  "A  new  play  and  a 
gentleman  in  a  new  suit  claim  the  same  privilege,  —  at 
their  first  presentment  their  estimation  is  double."  ® 

Pepys  testifies  that  they  retained  this  estimation,  for 
on  December  16,  1661,  he  and  his  wife  went  "to  the 
Opera  .  .  .  and  it  being  the  first  time,  the  pay  was 
doubled,  and  so  to  save  money  .  .  .  went  up  into  the 
gallery,  and  there  sat  and  saw  very  well."  ^  Downes,  too, 
in  making  note  of  the  great  success  of  Shadwell's  third 
day  of  The  Squire  of  Alsatia  (1688),  was  careful  to  say 
that  the  poet's  £130  made  the  greatest  total  known  "at 
single  Prizes";^  and  Gildon  in  1702  was  indignant  be- 

1  Reisen  des  Samuel  Kiechel,  ed.  K.  D.  Hassler,  p.  29,  cited  by  Creizenach, 
English  Drama  in  the  Age  of  Shakespeare,  p.  419,  note. 

^  As  suggested  by  Lawrence,  II,  loi. 

3  Guls  Horne-booke,  1609,  ProKmium,  p.  2. 

*  Diary,  I,  20. 

'  Jasper  Mayne  (Collier,  III,  148)  wrote  of  Jonson's  Volpone: 
When  the  Fox  had  ten  times  acted  been 
Each  day  was  first,  but  that  'twas  cheaper  seen. 

Taylor  himself  indicates  that  "extraordinary"  prices  were  charged  at  the 
time  of  the  Fennor  affair  {IVorks,  1630,  143  [305]):  cf.  p.  215,  above. 

^  Collier,  III,  214. 

^  McAfee,  p.  309.  ^  Roscius  Anglicanus,  p.  41. 


THE  PLAYHOUSES  231 

cause  "  the  Town  ran  mad  "  to  see  a  French  dancer,  "and 
the  Prizes  were  raised  to  an  extravagant  degree  to  bear 
the  extravagant  rate  they  allow'd  him."  ^  It  appears, 
however,  that  frequently  prices  were  "advanced"  rather 
than  doubled  for  these  special  occasions.  To  these  ad- 
vanced prices  —  "your  dear  five-shillings'  worth  of  wit" 
—  Charles  D'Avenant  alludes  in  the  prologue  to  his  Circe 
(1677),  and  the  Little  Haymarket  Theatre,  some  forty 
years  later,^  advertised  for  the  opening  day  of  a  new  play, 
boxes  and  pit  5^.,  gallery  2s.  6^.,  while  the  prices  for  the 
second  night  were  4^".,  is.  6<^.,  and  is.  6d.  respectively,  for 
boxes,  pit,  and  gallery. 

Victor,  who  was  a  good  friend  of  the  Gibbers,  speaks 
with  authority  on  advanced  prices  during  their  regime. 
"I  remember,  in  Gibber's  Time,"  he  writes,  "the  Prices 
to  have  been  raised  when  a  new  Play  has  been  thoroughly 
new  dressed  .  .  .  After  the  Run  of  that  Play  was  over, 
the  Prices  fell  again  to  their  old  Standard:  The  Prices 
were  also  raised  at  the  Introduction  of  a  Pantomime, 
when  it  was  supposed  a  Thousand  Pounds,  or  upwards, 
were  generally  expended  on  the  Decoration  of  these 
Raree-shews."  ^  For  a  time,  however,  the  pantomimes 
were  so  popular  that  they  became  a  fixture  on  the  play- 
bills, and  consequently  the  old  prices  threatened  to  fall 
in  abeyance.  "So  great  was  the  Run"  to  many  of  the 
Pantomimes,  says  Theophilus  Gibber,  "that  the  ad- 
vanced Prices,  by  their  frequent  Use,  became  rather  the 
common  Prices."  ^  When  the  old  common  prices  did 
hold,  that  fact  was  emphasized  as  if  it  were  of  rare  occur- 

^  Comparison  between  the  Stages,  p.  49.  2  Fitzgerald,  II,  228. 

^  Victor,  I,  44.  The  anonymous  author  of  a  pamphlet  published  in  1763, 
who  calls  himself  "  an  old  Man  of  the  Town,"  says  that  "  forty  years  ago, . . . 
when  a  new  play  was  new  dressed,  the  prices  were  always  raised  —  a  shilling 
was  advanced  on  every  person  in  the  boxes,  and  sixpence  on  every  one  in  the 
pit  and  first  Gallery"  (Three  Original  Letters  .  .  .  on  the  Cause  and  Manner 
oj  the  Late  Riot,  p.  32). 

*  Lives  and  Characters  oj  Actors  and  Actresses,  1753,  p.  68. 


232         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

rence,  —  as,  for  example,  in  the  Drury  Lane  playbill  of 
February  15,  1714,  which  announced  that  Jane  Shore 
would  be  played  "  loth  time,  for  the  author,  at  common 
prices."  ^  But  as  the  first  popularity  of  the  pantomime 
waned,  the  old  prices  came  back.  By  1768  the  advanced 
rates  had  become  uncommon  enough  to  be  specifically 
mentioned,  much  as  were  the  old  prices  in  the  17 14  bill. 
Victor  writes  that  at  Mrs.  Pritchard's  farewell  benefit 
in  1768  Drury  Lane  "was  crouded  with  the  first  People 
of  Distinction  at  advanced  Prices."  ^ 

In  the  long  run,  advanced  prices  proved  anything  but 
an  unmixed  blessing  to  the  managers,  though  Theophilus 
Gibber  (who  shrewdly  observed  that  the  management  of 
a  theatre  "has  many  parts")  suggested  to  the  laureate 
and  his  partners  a  device  whereby  for  a  time  they  escaped 
the  wrath  of  the  public.  Many  playgoers  had  objected 
strenuously  because  they  had  to  pay  extra  for  the  pan- 
tomimes, "whether  they  chose  to  have  them  or  not." 
Gibber  Jr.'s  remedy  was  adopted  by  the  management:  an 
"A^.  B.  was  inserted  in  the  Bills  to  this  eflPect  —  *  The 
Advance-Money  to  be  returned  to  those  who  chuse  to  go 
out  before  the  Overture  to  the  Entertainment.'  "  ^  Gib- 
ber states  that  this  device  "silenced  the  Glamour  against 
the  advanced  Prices"  without  noticeably  lessening  the 
receipts.  But  it  soon  became  burdensome.  By  Garrick's 
time  the  arrangement  had  been  extended,  so  that  those 
who  came  late  and  wished  to  see  only  the  second  part  of 
the  bill  were  required  to  pay  only  half-price.^  To  offset 
to  some  extent  the  great  increase  in  general  expenditure, 
both  Drury  Lane  and  Govent  Garden  tried  in  1763  to 
abolish  the  half-price  privilege,  but  there  ensued  such 

1  Cf.  Genest,  II,  525. 

2  III,  127.   Cf.  Garrick's  Poetical  Works,  1785,  II,  248-249. 

^  I.  e.,  the  pantomime  (T.  Gibber,  Lives  and  Characters,  I,  71;  see  also  his 
Letter  to  J.  Highmore,  London,  1733).  Genest,  IV,  143,  quotes  from  the  play- 
bills to  the  same  effect. 

*  Except  on  benefit  nights  or  other  special  occasions. 


THE  PLAYHOUSES  233 

determined  rioting,  such  enthusiastic  destruction  of  play- 
house benches,  chandeliers,  and  other  property,  and  — 
when  the  courts  stopped  this  —  such  an  orgy  of  catcalls 
and  hissing,  that  the  managers  had  to  give  in  and  restore 
the  old  privilege.^ 

Pantomimes  and  advanced  prices,  then,  were  respon- 
sible for  half-price  later  on.   They  did  not  pay  for  them- 
selves.   On  the  other  hand,  the  Elizabethan  practice  of 
charging  double  at  first  performances  proved  a  boon  not 
merely  to  the  managers  but  to  all  lovers  of  the  Eliza- 
bethan  drama,   then   and   now.     For   the   playgoer  of 
Shakspere's  time,  though  he  demanded  many  more  new 
plays,  proportionately,  than  any  of  his  successors,  re- 
garded a  first  performance  as  an  event  not  to  be  missed. 
When  it  came,  the  gallants  and  the  groundlings  were 
there  in  full  force.   In  his  Jests  (1607),  Dekker  notes  that 
pickpockets  are  busiest  "  the  day  the  Lord  Mayor  takes 
his  oath,  a  new  play ^  or  when  some  great  cause  is  hard  at 
the  Star  Chamber,"  and  elsewhere,  in  observing  that  hell 
is  thickly  populated,  he  remarks  that  "it  was  a  Comedy 
to  see  what  a  crowding  {as  if  it  had  been  at  a  new  Play) 
there  was  upon  the  Acherontique  Strond!"  ^   The  man- 
agers understood  that  when  the  crowds  descended  upon 
them,  the  law  of  supply  and  demand  was  in  their  favor. 
They  did  their  very  best,  therefore,  to  make  first  per- 
formances brilliant  and  fashionable:  even  the  boy  ushers 
were  supplied  with  new  gloves  on  such  occasions,  the 
players  were  gorgeously  costumed,^  and  the  prices  were 
doubled.  The  public's  willingness  to  pay  for  novelties  led 
the  managers  to  produce  an  astonishing  number  of  new 
plays,  and  goes  far  to  explain  the  quantity,  though  not 
the  quality,  of  the  Elizabethan  drama.  This  aspect  of  the 

1  See  Wyndham,  I,  154-155;  Fitzgerald,  II,  187  fF.;  Victor,  III,  45-47; 
Three  Original  Letters  on  the  Cause  and  Manner  of  the  late  Riot,  1763;  Wal- 
pole,  Letters,  ed.  Toynbee,  V,  289,  291. 

2  See  Jests  and  Newesjrom  Hell,  Grosart's  Dekker,  II,  327,  118. 
^  See  below,  pp.  250  fF. 


234         SHAKSPERE  TO   SHERIDAN 

matter  is  worth  dwelling  on  for  a  moment,  since  it  had  its 
bearings  upon  the  whole  make-up  of  the  repertory,  in 
Elizabethan  times  and  later. 

Henslowe's  dramatic  accounts  for  the  period  1592  to 
1603  show  that  the  playwrights  employed  by  his  com- 
panies averaged  one  new  play  about  every  two  and  a  half 
weeks,  —  truly  an  astonishing  productivity!^  Fleay,  it 
should  be  noted,  sought  to  account  for  the  superiority  of 
Shakspere's  company  on  the  ground  that  it  "employed 
few  poets  and  paid  them  well,"  producing  but  "four  new 
plays  ...  in  any  one  year."  ^  As  regards  the  first  of 
these  assertions,  one  recalls  that  besides  Shakspere  him- 
self, such  poets  as  Jonson,  Dekker,  Middleton,  and 
Webster  wrote  for  his  company;  and  also  that  the  com- 
petition between  companies  must  have  tended  to  equalize 
their  payments  to  the  poets.'  In  connection  with  Fleay's 
conjecture  as  to  the  number  of  plays  produced  by  Shak- 
spere's company,  it  is  well  to  remember  Mr.  Greg's  cau- 
tion. Had  John  Hemings  kept  an  expense  book  for 
Shakspere's  company  like  that  of  Henslowe's  —  or  rather, 
if  such  a  book  had  come  down  to  us  —  it  would  certainly 
supply  much  additional  information  about  forgotten 
plays  produced  by  the  King's  Men.^  Even  as  it  is,  we 
know  that  Shakspere's  company  recognized  the  practical 
value  of  novelty.  In  1601,  when  the  Essex  conspirators 
urged  them  to  act  Richard  II ^  they  demurred,  "holding 
that  play  to  be  so  old  and  so  long  out  of  use  that  they 
should  have  small  or  no  company  at  it."  The  play  was 
then  but  six  years  old.  The  conspirators  saw  the  point, 
however,  and  gave  the  players  a  special  subsidy  of  two 
pounds  to  protect  them  against  loss.^ 

1  From  February  19,  1592,  to  March  16,  1603  —  462  weeks  of  playing  — 
173  new  plays  were  produced;  i.  e.,  one  in  2.7  weeks.  Cf.  Fleay,  Stage,  pp. 
118,  414;  Thorndike,  p.  283.  Both  put  the  average  at  one  play  every  two 
weeks. 

2  Stage,  p.  118.  *  Diary,  II,  146. 

2  See  above,  pp.  22-23.  ^  Halliwell-Phillipps,  II,  359-362. 


THE  PLAYHOUSES  235 

Hemings's  diary  (if  we  had  it!)  would  doubtless  yield 
invaluable  information  concerning  the  Elizabethan  rep- 
ertory.   Lacking  it,  we  can  still  learn  much  from  Hens- 
lowe's.    Downes  and  the  playbills,  moreover,  tell  the 
story  for  Restoration  times  and  the  eighteenth  century. 
Let  us  glance,  first,  at  Henslowe's  entries  covering  the 
daily  takings  at  his  theatres  between  1592  and  1597.' 
These  entries  name  the  plays  given  from  day  to  day,  and 
one  has  merely  to  count  the  totals  to  see  how  they  suc- 
ceeded, and  how  the  repertory  responded  to  the  demands 
of  the  audiences.  Among  other  things,  one  observes  that 
each  new  play  produced  during  this  period  of  some  five 
years,    averaged    about    ten    performances    altogether. 
During  the  same  time  old  stock-plays  received  eight  per- 
formances each,  with  the  exception  of  six  very  popular 
old  pieces  —  Friar  Bacon  and  Friar  Bungay y  The  Spanish 
Tragedy y  The  Jew  of  Malta^  Doctor  Faustus^  and  the  two 
parts  of  Tamburlaine^  which  averaged  twenty  perform- 
ances each,  or  four  a  year.^    Henslowe's  entries  show, 
moreover,  that  the  programme  at  the  Rose  was  regularly 
changed  from  day  to  day:  the  Elizabethans  were  not 
obliged  to  suffer  a  Romeo  and  Juliet  season  or  a  Lear  sea- 
son, with  all  the  houses  playing  one  piece  only  for  weeks 
at  a  time.*   In  the  Henslowe  theatres,  even  new  plays 
and  the  most  popular  of  stock-plays  were  hardly  ever 
given  more  than  once  a  week.*   On  the  other  hand,  the 
programme  was  neither  so  varied  nor  so  long  as  in  the 
eighteenth  century.    The  play  was  the  thing;  the  pan- 

1  Biary,  I,  13-54;  II,  148-235. 

2  Sixty  new  plays  received  589  performances;  13  old  plays  were  given  108 
times;  and  the  six  plays  named  were  repeated  121  times. 

^  See  above,  p.  149. 

*  In  a  typical  week,  that  of  July  22,  1594,  there  were  given  the  following 
plays:  The  Jew  oj Malta,  Ga/ioso,  Phillipo  and  Hyppolito,  Bellendon,  Godfrey, 
and  The  Massacre  of  Paris.  Once  in  a  long  while  a  new  play  was  repeated 
within  three  or  four  days  of  its  first  performance.  Thus,  Phillipo  and  Hyp- 
polito, first  produced  on  July  9, 1 594,  was  repeated  on  July  1 3, 1 594  {Diary,  I, 


ip         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

tomime  and  the  farce  were  not  yet,  though  we  have  seen 
that  the  EHzabethan  could  have  his  play  for  twopence 
and  his  jig  —  usually  an  unpretentious,  rough-and- 
tumble  afterpiece  —  to  boot.  One  of  the  characters  in 
Nathaniel  Field's  Amends  for  Ladies  {ca.  1611)  talks  of 
going  to  see  "Long  Meg  and  the  Ship  at  the  Fortune," 
and  the  chances  are  that  a  play  with  a  jig  "i'  the  tail  of 
it"  was  on  the  bill  for  that  occasion.  Mr.  Greg  is  in- 
clined to  believe  that  occasionally  two  plays  may  have 
been  given  in  one  day,  and  calls  attention  to  Henslowe's 
entry  of  September  24,  1594,  when  he  received  47J.  as  his 
share  of  the  takings  for  "venesyon  [Venetian?]  &  the  love 
&  Ingleshe  lady."  ^  If  these  were  actually  two  plays,  the 
programme  was  very  exceptional,  for  hundreds  of  other 
entries  in  the  Diary  prove  beyond  a  doubt  that  one  play 
was  the  order  of  the  day  almost  invariably.  Even  so,  the 
Elizabethan  repertory  called  for  a  large  stock.  The  1598 
inventory  of  the  Admiral's  Men,  accordingly,  lists  an 
active  repertory  of  twenty-nine  plays,  while  "the  King 
and  Queen's  young  Company"  of  1639  possessed  forty- 
five,  chiefly  by  Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  Shirley,  and 
Massinger.2  We  have  already  seen  that  the  two  Restora- 
tion companies  divided  these  old  plays  between  them.^ 
So  far  as  Elizabethan  times  are  concerned,  I  think  it 
would  be  difficult  to  overemphasize  the  causal  connection 
between  the  practice  of  charging  double  at  first  per- 
formances and  the  rich  and  varied  splendor  of  the  rep- 
ertory. New  plays  were  always  in  demand.  The 
playwrights  then,  and  lovers  of  the  Elizabethan  drama 
now,  profited  thereby. 

It  must  be  admitted  that  Henslowe  is  our  one  sub- 
stantial source  of  information  as  to  these  matters,  but 
there  is  every  reason  to  believe  that  the  repertory  ar- 

1  Diary,  II,  167. 

*  Henslowe  Papers,  p.  121;  Malone,  III,  159-160. 

'  See  above,  p.  52. 


THE  PLAYHOUSES  237 

rangements  of  Shakspere's  company  resembled  those  of 
its  chief  competitors  —  the  Admiral's  Men  under  Hens- 
lowe.  The  actors  were  trained  in  one  school,  and  often 
shifted  from  one  company  to  the  other.  Many  of  the 
playwrights  wrote  for  the  Admiral's  Men  as  well  as  for 
Shakspere's  company.  And  their  public  was  one  and  the 
same.  In  essential  points,  then,  the  arrangements  at  the 
Rose  and  the  Fortune  probably  did  not  differ  from  those 
at  the  Globe.  The  daily  change  of  programme  proved  by 
Henslowe's  notes  is  perhaps  the  most  striking  characteris- 
tic of  the  Elizabethan  repertory,  and  it  is  hardly  con- 
ceivable that  on  such  a  point  his  practice  could  have 
differed  from  that  in  vogue  at  the  other  theatres  just  be- 
fore the  close  of  the  sixteenth  century.  Before  the  closing 
of  the  theatres,  however,  we  see  signs  of  a  transition  to- 
wards Restoration  methods.  By  1625  Middleton's  Game 
at  Chess  was  "acted  nine  days  together  at  the  Globe  on 
the  Bankside,"  ^  while  Marmion's  Holland's  Leaguer  ran 
six  days  successively  at  the  Salisbury  Court  in  163 1.2 

At  the  beginning  of  the  Restoration  successful  plays 
still  had  comparatively  short  runs.  There  was  Cowley's 
Cutter  of  Coleman  Street  (1661),  for  instance,  —  a  lively 
and  popular  play.  Downes  praises  it  highly.  It  was 
acted  "so  perfectly  Well  and  Exact,"  says  he,  that  "it 
was  perform 'd  a  whole  Week  with  a  full  Audience."  ^ 
But  Downes  also  suggests  that,  a  decade  later,  a  run  of 
six  days  was  no  longer  an  indication  of  success,  for  he  re- 
marks that  in  1671  Crowne's  Charles  VIII,  though  it  was 
"all  new  Cloath'd,"  and  had  in  addition  the  distinction 
of  being  the  first  new  play  acted  at  Dorset  Garden  The- 
atre, "yet  lasted  but  6  Days  together."  *  By  this  time 
other  plays  had  done  better.  D'Avenant's  Men  had 
opened  Dorset  Garden  in  1671  with  Dry  den's  Sir  Martin 

^  Title  page  of  the  quarto.  Cf.  Malone,  III,  177;  Shakespeare  Society 
Papers,  II,  104. 

*  Malone,  III,  178.  ^  Roscius  Anglicanus,  p.  25.  *  P.  32. 


238         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

Mar-all  (first  acted  in  1667),  and  that  piece  "continue'd 
Acting  3  Days  together,  with  a  full  Audience  each  Day, 
notwithstanding  it  had  been  Acted  30  Days  before  in 
Lincolns-Inn-Fields  and  above  4  times  at  Court."  Some- 
time before  this  —  at  the  opening  of  Killigrew's  Drury 
Lane  in  1663  —  Beaumont  and  Fletcher's  Humorous 
Lieutenant  ran  for  twelve  afternoons;  and  between  1661 
and  1665  ten  successive  performances  of  The  Villain^  a 
tragedy  by  Thomas  Porter,  and  thirteen  of  Sir  Samuel 
Tuke's  Adventures  of  Five  Hours^  are  recorded  for  D'Ave- 
nant's  theatre  in  Lincoln's  Inn  Fields.^  Runs  of  this 
length,  however,  were  still  very  exceptional,  and  Downes 
mentions  them  for  that  reason.  For  some  time,  at  any 
rate,  these  records  were  not  bettered,  and  some  successful 
pieces  did  not  equal  them.  We  read,  for  example,  that 
(about  1664)  D'Avenant's  Rivals  —  in  which  Moll  Davis 
scored  so  heavily  three  or  four  years  later  —  "by  the  Ex- 
cellent performance  lasted  uninterruptedly  Nine  Days," 
while  Caryll's  Sir  Salomon  or  The  Cautious  Coxcomb^ 
again  "Singularly  well  Acted,  took  11  Days  together"  in 
1670.  Six  years  after,  Otway's  Don  Carlos^  though  it 
"got  more  Money  than  any  preceding  Modern  Tragedy," 
ran  but  ten  days,  while  Shadwell's  Squire  of  Alsatia 
(1688),  and  Congreve's  Love  for  Love  (1695)  ^^^  "^^^ 
Mourning  Bride  (1697)  —  all  extraordinarily  successful 
plays  —  had  opening  runs  of  thirteen  performances  each, 
no  more  than  Tuke's  Adventures  some  thirty  years  earlier.^ 
With  the  turn  of  the  century,  however,  successful 
plays  began  to  hold  the  stage  for  longer  periods.  In  the 
season  of  1 699-1 700  Farquhar  established  a  record 
which  stood  for  some  time  after,  for  in  that  season  The 
Constant  Couple  ran  at  Drury  Lane  for  fifty-three  nights,^ 
—  twice  as  long  as  the  next  big  hit,  Addison's  Cato^ 
which,  Colley  Cibber  tells  us,  was  acted  at  Drury  Lane 

1  Pp.  3,  22-23,  3^*  ^  Chetwood,  p.  150. 

2  Pp.  23-24,  29-30,  2(>,  41 J  44-  Cf.  Lowe,  Betterton,  pp.  93-94. 


THE  PLAYHOUSES  239 

"Mondays  excepted  .  .  .  every  day  for  a  month  to 
constantly  crowded  Houses."  Cibber  mentions  several 
other  plays  which  had  good  runs.  Among  them  was,  first, 
his  own  Non-Juror  (1717).  All  the  reason  he  had  "to 
think  it  no  bad  Performance  was  that  it  was  acted  eight- 
een Days  running."  Another  remark  of  his,  concerning 
the  production  of  The  Provoked  Husband  (1728),  is  of 
interest  because  it  indicates  how  much  the  daily  box- 
office  receipts  of  a  successful  play  were  at  that  time.  He 
declares  that  a  powerful  party  of  his  enemies  "most  im- 
petuously" sought  to  damn  the  piece,  knowing  that  he 
had  completed  this  unfinished  work  of  Vanbrugh's.  The 
event  pleased  Colley,  and  one  does  not  wonder  that  he 
recalled  it  with  pleasure.  "This  damn'd  Play,"  he 
writes,  "was,  notwithstanding,  acted  twenty-eight  Nights 
together,  and  left  off  at  a  Receipt  of  upwards  of  a  hun- 
dred and  forty  Pounds;  which  happen'd  to  be  more  than 
in  fifty  Years  before  could  be  then  said  of  any  one  Play 
whatsoever."  ^ 

Cibber,  however,  is  not  quite  accurate  here,  for  rea- 
sons not  too  difficult  to  fathom.  For  one  thing,  his  own 
statement  "concerning  another  entertainment  put  on  at 
Drury  Lane  in  his  time  might  be  cited  against  him,  for  he 
tells  us  also  that,  in  The  Coronation  Ceremony  of  Anna 
Bullen  (1727),  he  and  his  brother  managers  had  "in- 
vented and  adorn 'd  a  Spectacle  that  for  Forty  Days  to- 
gether has  brought  more  money  to  the  House  than  the 
best  Play  that  ever  was  writ."  ^  But  The  Coronation  was 
not  a  play.  The  Beggar  s  Opera^  broadly  speaking,  was  a 
play,  though  Cibber  dismisses  it  as  a  "new  Species  of 
Dramatick  Poetry"  with  which  he  had  no  concern.  In 
view  of  the  fact  that  he  had  refused  it  when  Gay  offered 
it  to  Drury  Lane,  one  can  understand  why  he  chose  to 
leave  it  out  of  consideration  when  making  his  large  claim 
for  The  Provoked  Husbands  Nineteen  days  after  the  first 

1  Apology,  II,  186,  189-190.  2  ij^  206.  ^  Ij  243. 


240        SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

performance  of  that  piece,  The  Beggar's  Opera  started  its 
phenomenal  career  at  Lincoln's  Inn  Fields,  and  there  it 
ran  for  sixty-two  nights  in  its  first  season,  with  average 
receipts  of  about  £150  ^  —  "more  Money,"  says  a  con- 
temporary pamphlet,  than  has  been  earned  by  "any 
one  Piece  exhibited  in  this  Age."  ^  It  was  a  smashing 
success,  and  nothing  approached  it  for  years,  —  not  even 
the  popularity  of  Lillo's  London  Merchant^  which  drew 
crowded  houses  for  above  twenty  nights  in  1731.*  In 
short,  but  for  Fielding's  Pasquin  with  its  sixty-odd  per- 
formances in  1736,^  the  record  of  The  Beggar's  Opera 
stood  untouched  until  1775,  when  Sheridan's  Duenna 
scored  seventy-five  performances  in  its  first  season.  Let 
him  who  would  moralize  upon  the  transitory  glories  of  the 
theatre  note  also  that,  of  all  the  plays  that  followed  in  the 
next  two  or  three  decades,  perhaps  the  most  successful  — 
as  the  box-office  measures  success  —  were  Monk  Lewis's 
rather  silly  Castle  Spectre  in  1797-98,  and  Sheridan's 
mediocre  Pizarro  the  year  after.  These  plays  scored  runs 
of  forty-seven  and  sixty-seven  performances,  respec- 
tively, in  their  opening  seasons.  Great  runs  they  were  for 
those  days,  though  the  figures  do  not  seem  so  remarkable 
now,  when  certain  musical  extravaganzas  contrive  to 
hold  the  boards  for  four  or  five  years  at  a  time.^ 

The  vicissitudes  of  theatrical  management  have  been 
duly  emphasized  in  this  book.  It  was  but  fair,  therefore, 
after  treating  of  the  difficulties  of  playhouse  finance,  to 
look  away  for  a  moment  from  the  seamy  side  of  the  cur- 
tain, though  it  is  obvious  that  successes  such  as  those 

^  Pearce,  Polly  Peachum,  p.  191. 

2  Do  You  Know  What  You  are  About?  1733,  p.  ii;  cf.  Fitzgerald,  II,  34. 

^  T.  Gibber's  Lives  oj  the  Poets,  1753,  V,  339;  cf.  Davies,  Lije,  in  Lillo's 
Works,  1775,  I,  xiii;  Genest,  III,  298,  326. 

^  Cross,  History  oJ  Henry  Fielding,  I,  1 87;  Godden,  Henry  Fielding,  pp. 
66,  70. 

5  Genest,  V,  514;  VII,  ZZ'^-'iZA^  34©,  468;  Percy  Anecdotes,  XXVII,  133, 
154.  By  the  spring  of  1920,  Chu  Chin  Chow  and  The  Maid  of  the  Mountains 
had  run  in  London  for  four  and  five  years  respectively. 


THE  PLAYHOUSES  241 

just  mentioned,  were  not  everyday  occurrences.  William 
Egerton,  Nance  Oldfield's  biographer,  suggests  another 
point  worth  noting  in  this  connection.  "The  Number  of 
Nights,"  he  says,  "and  the  common  Method  of  filling  the 
House,  are  not  always  the  surest  Marks  of  judging  what 
Encouragement  a  Play  meets  with."  ^  This  is  merely  an- 
other way  of  saying  that  the  managers  of  old  sometimes 
kept  certain  plays  running  longer  —  for  advertising  pur- 
poses —  than  the  public  demanded. ^  The  tricks  of  the 
trade  have  not  been  forgotten!  Plays  still  outstay  their 
welcome  in  London  and  New  York,  and  managers  still 
paper  their  houses  on  occasion  in  order  to  manufacture 
prestige  for  their  productions  on  the  road.  In  short,  the 
superficial  evidences  of  prosperity  are  not  to  be  accepted 
without  reservation,  any  more  than  the  enthusiastic  re- 
ports of  playgoers  who  see  only  the  golden  stream  that 
pours  into  the  box-office. 

Even  in  Shakspere's  time,  there  were  not  lacking  those 
who  loved  to  exaggerate  the  prosperity  of  the  players. 
The  author  of  the  second  part  of  The  Return  from  Parnas- 
sus^ for  instance,  makes  William  Kemp  tell  the  hungry 
students  who  aspire  to  a  career  on  the  boards,  to  "be 
merry,  .  .  .  you  have  happened  upon  the  most  excellent 
vocation  in  the  world  for  money:  they  come  North  and 
South  to  bring  it  to  our  playhouse."  ^  The  players  then, 
as  it  happened,  had  as  keen  a  sense  of  advertising  values 
as  any  that  came  after,  and  so  they  were  probably  quite 
content  to  have  the  public  believe  them  exceeding  rich. 
We  have  seen  that  some  of  them  were  men  of  substance,^ 
but  there  were  many  whose  lot  was  not  so  rosy  as  it  was 
painted.  If  "  this  great  world  is  no  more  than  a  stage,"  — 
so  Rowley  writes  in  the  dedication  of  A  Fair  parrel 
(161 7)  —  "indeed  the  players  themselves  have  the  least 

1  Life  of  Mrs.  Oldfield,  p.  25. 

^  See  above,  on  the  Romeo  and  Juliet  season,  p.  149. 
^  Ed.  Macray,  p.  139.  Acted  1601,  printed  1606. 
*  See  above,  p.  loi. 


242         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

part  of  it,  for  I  know  few  that  have  lands  (which  are  a 
part  of  the  world)  and  therefore  no  grounded  men;  but 
howsoever  they  serve  for  mutes,  happily  must  wear  good 
clothes  for  attendance,  yet  all  have  exits  and  all  must  be 
stript  in  the  tiring-house  (viz.  the  grave),  for  none  must 
carry  any  thing  out  of  the  stock."  ^  And  all  this  applied 
to  some  extent  also  to  the  managers,  and  doubtless  does 
still  to  some  of  them.  Yet  the  tales  of  the  golden  showers 
that  descend  upon  the  theatres  will  never  die.  There  is 
the  old  story,  for  example,  that  the  receipts  for  nine  per- 
formances of  Middleton's  Game  at  Chess  in  1624  totalled 
over  £1,500,  more  than  £160  for  each  performance. 
Malone  suggested  long  ago  that  some  one  probably  added 
a  cipher  to  the  real  amount,^  but  the  figures  have  been 
enthusiastically  repeated,  just  as  if  that  altogether 
plausible  suggestion  had  never  been  made.  The  fact  of 
the  matter  is  that  Elizabethan  writers  who  mention  the- 
atrical receipts  a  decade  or  so  before  the  close  of  the  six- 
teenth century  put  the  daily  takings  at  five  or  six  pounds, 
while  Sir  Henry  Herbert's  records  show  that  the  gross 
receipts  of  eleven  benefit  performances  he  had  at  the 
Globe  and  Blackfriars  between  1628  and  1633  —  the 
most  popular  plays  of  Shakspere,  Jonson,  and  Fletcher 
being  chosen  for  the  purpose  —  averaged  only  ten  or 
eleven  pounds.^  That  the  Game  of  Chess  story  is  a  story 
appears  from  the  fact  that  sixty-four  years  later,  when 
the  theatres  were  far  larger  and  the  prices  had  doubled  or 
trebled.  The  Squire  of  Alsatia  brought  record  receipts  of 
£130.^  We  have  Pepys's  word  for  it,  moreover,  that  the 
takings  in  Restoration  times  did  not  always  exceed  those 
of  Sir  Henry  Herbert  in  1628.  "Lord,  what  an  empty 
house!"  he  wrote  after  coming  home  from  Drury  Lane  on 

1  Bullen's  Middleton,  IV,  157. 

2  Malone,  III,  177-178;  cf.  Shakespeare  Society  Papers,  II,  103-105. 

'  Malone,  III,  176-177.    For  fuller  discussion  see  the  writer's  paper  in 
Studies  in  Philology,  XV,  88  ff. 
^  Downes,  p.  41. 


a^/'-     ^      6       <^ .  >  ■    /'•        /^       ^' 


THE  PLAYHOUSES  243 

February  26,  1669,  "there  not  being,  as  I  could  tell  the 
people,  so  many  as  to  make  up  above  £10."  ^  And  there 
is  other  testimony  to  the  same  effect.  The  author  of 
The  Laureate  one  of  the  anti-Cibber  pamphlets,  reports 
that  the  great  Betterton  played  more  than  once  "to  an 
audience  of  twenty  pounds  or  under."  The  laureate,  in 
propria  persona^  describes  the  misfortunes  of  the  opera, 
pointing  out  that,  about  1737,  its  best  artist,  Farinelli, 
sang  to  an  audience  of  but  S.'^'^^  and  Davies  writes  of  one 
dismal  night  in  1763  when  the  receipts  at  Drury  Lane 
amounted  to  no  more  than  £3  15^-.  6^^.,  although  Garrick 
and  Mrs.  Cibber  performed  in  the  same  play.^  These,  of 
course,  were  exceptionally  bad  houses,  but  they  suggest 
once  more  how  grossly  exaggerated  were  the  stories  of  the 
Globe's  huge  receipts  in  earlier  times.  Victor  is  probably 
near  the  truth  in  estimating  that  the  nightly  receipts  of 
the  patent  houses  in  the  Restoration  "seldom  exceeded 
seventy  Pounds,"  ^  and  Davies  states  positively  that 
Goodman's  Fields  Theatre,  one  of  the  smaller,  non-patent 
houses,  earned  only  £30  and  a  few  shillings  a  night  so  late 
as  1 74 1,  when  Garrick  was  crowding  it  at  every  per- 
formance;^ CoUey  Gibber's  history  of  his  own  time  has 
already  shown  us  that  some  few  plays  then  went  well 
above  the  hundred-pound  mark,  but  this  figure  was 
rarely  exceeded  down  to  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth 
century.  It  was  the  average  sum  realized  in  the  season  of 
1751-52  from  forty  Dublin  performances  of  four  stock 
plays  in  which  Peg  Woffington  was  the  star,  —  a  return, 
says  Victor,  "never  known  in  any  Theatre  from  four  old 
stock  plays."  ^ 

1  McAfee,  p.  86. 

"^  The  Laureat,  1740,  p.  32;  Apology,  II,  88;  Davies,  Life  of  Garrick,  II,  66. 

3  Victor,  III,  95. 

*  £216  yj.  6d.  for  seven  niglits  (Davies,  I,  41). 

*  I,  151.  For  further  material  see  Fitzgerald,  I,  145;  Dowries,  pp.  25,  44. 
The  anonymous  author  oi  An  Apology  for  the  Life  oj  Mr.  T[heophilus\  C[ibber\, 
1740,  speaking  of  the  "Nusance  of  having  Crouds"  of  outsiders  "behind  our 


244         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

As  the  theatres  were  enlarged  and  prices  advanced,  the 
receipts  increased,  but  not  fast  enough  to  keep  pace  with 
the  huge  increase  in  investment  and  expenses.  The 
British  Museum  playbills  of  Covent  Garden  for  the  sea- 
son 1789-1790  have  on  their  backs  the  treasurer's  entries 
of  daily  receipts,  and  these  average  almost  exactly  £200 
for  the  first  three  months  of  the  season.  A  year  later, 
Drury  Lane  was  rebuilt,  and  the  architect  and  business 
managers  planned  for  a  seating  capacity  of  nearly  4,000 
people  and  £800.^  If  only  the  house  had  been  always  full, 
the  investment  of  £150,000  would  have  been  a  capital 
speculation!  The  Elizabethan  theatres  probably  did  not 
have  sitting  and  standing  room  for  more  than  a  thousand 
or  fifteen  hundred,^  the  rates  of  admission  were  low,  and 
yet  the  theatres  paid.  Malone  estimates  that  in  Shak- 
spere's  time  about  two  hundred  performances  a  year  were 
given  at  the  Globe,  and  that  is  almost  exactly  the  num- 
ber given  at  Drury  Lane  and  Covent  Garden  in  the 
seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries.^  Accordingly,  the 
Covent  Garden  receipts  in  1791-1792  would  have  been 
almost  equal  to  the  total  sum  invested  in  it  —  if  only  its 
actors  had  played  to  full  houses  always. 

Sir  Henry  Herbert  made  note  of  the  fact  that  from  the 
gross  receipts  of  the  benefits  he  had  from  the  King's  Men 
between  1628  and  1633,  there  were  deducted  the  house- 
keepers' daily  expenses  of  some  £2  5^-.,  and  the  actors  of 
that  company  stated,  in  the  sharing  dispute  of  1635, 
that  their  expenses  "one  day  with  another"  throughout 

Scenes,"  remarks:  "Will  a  dozen  Crowns  compensate  the  AflFront  given  to  a 
whole  Audience  of  a  hundred  or  a  hundred  and  fifty  Pounds?"  (p.  69). 

^  The  exact  figures  are  given  in  the  Annual  Register  for  1794  (2d  ed., 
Chronicle,  p.  11):  361 1  persons  and  £826  6s. 

2  See  Appendix  III,  p.  311. 

^  This  figure  is  established  by  the  playbills  as  well  as  by  Statement  oj  Dif- 
ferences, 1800,  p.  25  ("There  are  on  an  average  one  hundred  and  ninety-two 
acting  nights  in  the  season").  Victor,  I,  29,  referring  to  Drury  Lane  in  Fleet- 
wood's time,  says:  "That  Company  generally  played  an  hundred  and  eighty 
Nights."     Cf.  Malone,  III,  179. 


THE  PLAYHOUSES  245 

the  year  were  £3.^  In  other  words,  the  total  daily  ex- 
penses of  housekeepers  and  actor-sharers  a  decade  or  two 
after  Shakspere's  death  were  about  £5.  By  1700  they 
were  six  times,  and  by  1800,  thirty  times  as  much.^ 

Something  too  much  of  figures!  There  will  be  less  and 
less  of  them  in  what  remains.  No  further  marshalling  of 
budget  items  is  needed  here,  for  we  have  said  our  say  con- 
cerning the  most  important,  the  charges  of  playwrights, 
players,  and  houses.  Certain  miscellaneous  points  will 
require  attention  before  we  close.  Two  of  these  are  of 
some  importance:  the  matter  of  costumes  and  properties 
for  one,  and  theatrical  advertising  for  the  other. 

3.   Costumes  and  Properties 

In  the  Elizabethan  theatre,  according  to  Pepys  and  Killi- 
grew,  everything  was  as  mean  as  in  a  bear-garden,  and 
rudeness  ruled  with  undivided  sway.  We  have  seen, 
however,  that  certain  Elizabethan  testimony  runs  coun- 
ter to  the  accepted  view  as  to  the  coarseness  of  the  plain 
old  stage;  and  that  view  does  something  less  than  justice 
not  only  to  the  playhouses  themselves,  but  also  to  their 
fittings,  costumes,  and  properties.  It  was  quite  in  accord 
with  Restoration  opinion,  but  not,  I  think,  with  the  facts 
—  for  the  simple  reason  that  the  loyal  gentlemen  of  the 
Restoration  exaggerated  the  glories  of  their  time  and 
place,  and  consciously  or  otherwise  belittled  their  pred- 
ecessors, who  had  not  the  inestimable  advantage  of  the 
elegant  polish  his  Majesty  and  his  court  had  brought 
back  with  them  out  of  France.  Their  say-so  concerning 
the  crudeness  of  the  Elizabethan  theatre  has  been  so 
long  and  often  repeated  that  it  is  worth  looking  into.  Let 
us  see  what  there  is  to  see. 

Like  other  writers  of  his  time,  Richard  Flecknoe,  in  his 
Discourse  of  the  English  Stage  [ca.  1660),  drew  a  sharp 

1  Malone,  III,  176;  Halliwell-Phillipps,  Outlines,  I,  313. 
*  See  above,  p.  37. 


246         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

distinction  between  Elizabethan  times  and  the  Restora- 
tion. The  theatre  of  old,  he  avers,  was  "but  plain  and 
simple,  with  no  other  Scenes  nor  Decorations  of  the 
Stage,  but  only  old  Tapestry,  and  the  Stage  strew'd  with 
Rushes,  {with  their  Habits  accordingly)  whereas  ours  now 
for  cost  and  ornament  are  arriv'd  at  the  heighth  of  Mag- 
nificence." But,  unlike  Pepys  and  Killigrew,  he  admitted 
that  "Scenes  and  Machines  are  no  new  invention,  our 
Masks  and  some  of  our  Playes  in  former  times  (though 
not  so  ordinary)  having  had  as  good  or  rather  better  than 
any  we  have  now."  ^  All  this,  in  effect,  except  the  signif- 
icant reservation,  reappears  in  Gildon's  Life  of  Betterton 
(1710),  which  informs  us  that  Elizabethan  audiences 
"saw  nothing  before  them  but  some  Linsy  Woolsy  Cur- 
tains, or  at  best  some  piece  of  old  Tapistry  fill'd  with 
awkerd  Figures,  that  would  almost  fright"  them.^  And  it 
is  reechoed  in  a  poem  on  The  Stage,  addressed  to  Addison 
in  1 7 13  by  one  Dr.  Reynardson: 

Rough  was  the  Language,  unadorn'd  the  Stage 
And  mean  his  Hero's  Dress  in  Shakespear's  Age: 
No  scepter'd  Kings  in  Royal  Robes  were  seen, 
Scarce  could  their  Guards  defend  their  tinsel'd  Queen, 
Scarce  could  the  House  contain  the  list'ning  Shoal, 
Scarce  had  the  mimick-Thunder,  room  to  roU.^ 

Like  Gildon  and  Reynardson,  Malone  had  little  to  say 
concerning  machines  and  properties;  in  other  respects, 
too,  he  is  in  substantial  agreement  with  them.  He  admits, 
to  be  sure,  that  "stage  dresses"  may  have  been  "much 
more  costly  in  some  playhouses  than  others,"  but  his 
conclusion  is  that  "the  wardrobe  of  even  the  king's  serv- 
ants at  the  Globe  and  Blackfriars  was  .  .  .  but  scantily 
furnished,"  and  that  Shakspere's  plays  "derived  very 

*  Attached  to  Love's  Kingdom,  1664;  reprinted  by  Hazlitt,  English  Drama 
and  Stage,  p.  280. 
2  Pp.  6-7. 
'  This  poem  is  reprinted  in  Egerton's  Life  of  Mrs.  Oldfield,  pp.  182  fF. 


THE  PLAYHOUSES  247 

little  aid  from  the  splendour  of  exhibition."  ^    This  in_ 

spite  of  the  fact  that  Gosson,  so  early _gis^^8ij^^on-  ^,  ^. 

demned  in  no  uncertain  terms  "  the^preparafinn  of  Stagggj^- 

apparell,  and_such  like  a^  settefh  nnf  nnr  plaies  in^ 
'^hewes  of  pornpe  and  state^"  and  "  the  waste  of  expences 
m  these  spectacles,  .  .  .  this  study  to  prancke  up  them- 
selves," -  while  Prynne,  in  1633,  brought  to  bear  the  full 
force  of  his  moral  indignation  against  "  the  common 
Actors"  and  their  ''Pompous^  and  stately  shewes^  and 
Scenes;  that  effeminate,  rich,  and  gorgious  Attire:  that 
glittering,  and  glorious  Apparell''  ^  Malone  notices  such 
dissenting  opinions,  only  to  dismiss  them  as  rant,  and 
decides  that  "the  splendid  and  ungodly  dress"  objected 
to  by  the  Puritans  was  in  reality  only  "coarse  stuff 
trimmed  with  tinsel."  Perhaps  it  was,  —  but  Taylor  the_ 
Water  Poet  did  not  think  so  at  the  tim^e^pfJELFennor 
episode  (1614),  for  he  says  that  in  the  midst  of  the  players^ 
"on  the  Hope  stage  on  the  Bank-side"  he  looked  like  "a 
silly  taper''  set  m  "some  12  or  16  Torches  lightHi — 

E'en  so  seem'd  I  amidst  the  guarded  troope 
Of  gold-lac'd  Actors.* 

What  is  more,  Henslowe  repeatedly  lent  his  companies 
sums  equivalent  to  hundreds  of  dollars  to-day,  to  buy 
copper  lace,  gold  lace,  silver  lace,  and  silk  and  satin  and 
cloth  of  silver,  —  and  in  161 5  the  Lady  Elizabeth's  Men 
accused  him  of  taking  from  their  stock  "right  gould  and 
silver  lace  of  diverse  garmentes  to  his  owne  use."  ^ 

As  to  properties  and  general  furnishings  on  the  Eliza- 
bethan stage,  Malone  quotes  a  line  from  Ben  Jonson,  — 
"I  am  none  of  your  fresh  pictures  that  use  to  beautify  the 
decayed  old  arras  in  a  public  theatre,"  ^  —  a  satirical  bit 

1  Malone,  III,  ii8.  ^  piays  Confuted  (Hazlitt,  p.  199). 

'  Histrio-MasHx,  p.  47. 

*  Taylors  Revenge  {Works,  1630,  Spenser  Society  edition,  p.  305). 
^  Diary,  I,  99,  165,  166,  169,  180,  190,  etc.;  Papers,  p.  89. 

*  Induction  to  Cynthia's  Revels  (Malone,  III,  106). 


248         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

that  certainly  does  not  tell  the  whole  truth.  Later 
scholars,  however,  have  too  often  accepted  it.  Mantzius, 
for  example,  held  that  "scarcely  any  money  was  spent  in 
the  equipment  of  the  stage  except  on  the  properties 
which  were  needed  in  the  plays,  but  which  can  hardly  be 
called  stage  furniture,"  while  Mr.  R.  W.  Lowe  insists 
that  "  the  stage  knew  nothing  more  than  coarse  hangings 
or  rude  tapestry."  ^ 

If  there  were  only  the  Puritan  rebuttal  to  oppose  to 
these  views,  they  might  be  entitled  to  acceptance, 
though  it  would  be  difficult  to  explain  such  shabbiness  in 
an  age  so  fond  of  gorgeous  dress  and  fine  show.  But  as  a 
matter  of  fact  the  friends  of  the  theatre,  no  less  than  its 
enemies,  have  left  glowing  accounts  of  contemporary 
staging.  "Oure  Sceane  is  more  statelye  furnisht  than 
ever  it  was  in  the  time  of  Roscius,"  wrote  Nashe  in  Pierce 
Penniless  (1592),  and  again,  in  Christ's  Teares  over  Jeru- 
salem (1593),  he  described  England  as  a  "Players  Stage  of 
gorgeous  attyre."  ^  Dekker  testifies  to  the  same  purpose. 
He  advises  his  Gull  "above  all"  to  "curse  the  sharers, 
that  whereas  the  same  day  you  had  bestowed  forty  shill- 
ings on  an  embroudered  Felt  and  Feather,  (scotch  fash- 
ion), .  .  .  within  two  houres  after,  you  encounter  with 
the  very  same  block  on  the  stage,  when  the  haberdasher 
swore  to  you  the  impression  was  extant  but  that  morn- 
ing." *  Apparently  the  sharers,  far  from  being  content 
with  shabbiness  on  their  stage,  sought  no  less  than  the 
moderns  to  make  it  the  very  glass  of  fashion  and  the 
mould  of  form.  It  was  so  in  the  public  houses  as  well  as 
the  private,  just  before  the  closing  of  the  theatres,  as 
truly  as  in  Northbrooke's  time  and  Stephen  Gosson's. 
Orazio  Busino  visited  the  Fortune  —  a  public  theatre, 
and  not  a  very  elegant    one  —  in  1617,  and  was  fas- 

'  Mantzius,  History  oj  Theatrical  Art,  III,  ii8;  Lowe,  Betterton,  p.  6. 
2  Works,  ed.  McKerrow,  I,  215,  II,  14a. 
*  Guls  Horne-Booke,  1609,  p.  30. 


THE  PLAYHOUSES  249 

cinated  by  "such  a  crowd  of  nobility  so  well  arrayed 
that  they  looked  like  so  many  princes,"  as  well  as  by  "  the 
very  costly  dresses  of  the  actors."  ^  And  we  have  already 
seen  that  by  1638  Richard  Brome  lamented  the  decline  of 
the  old  way  of  plays  and  the  growing  lavishness  of  orna- 
ment, —  the  fact  that  clothes  were  only  good.*  The 
question  is  merely  one  of  comparative  values.  The 
Elizabethans,  of  course,  did  not  achieve  the  splendid  ex- 
travagance of  the  Restoration,  nor  the  costly  but  careful 
staging  of  modern  times.  D'Avenant  came  too  late  to  be 
really  of  them,  and  they  had  no  David  Belasco.  Yet  it 
would  seem  that,  according  to  their  lights  and  with  all 
their  limitations,  they  knew  almost  as  well  as  the  most 
modern  of  the  moderns  how  to  spend  money  lavishly  in 
order  to  please  an  audience  fond  of  gaudy  effects. 

If  decayed  old  arras  were  all  the  Elizabethan  theatre 
had  to  boast,  how  did  it  happen  that  even  Flecknoe  spoke 
respectfully  of  its  properties  and  machines?  It  is  certain 
that  these  were,  on  the  whole,  very  crude  as  compared 
with  the  magnificent  costuming,  and  yet  one  can  easily 
press  the  point  too  far.  Henslowe's  "poleyes  [pulleys] 
&  worckmanshipp  for  to  hange  Absolome"  and  his  "cau- 
derm  for  the  Jewe"^  were  but  two  devices  out  of  many. 
Nor  should  we  forget  that  the  actors  were  constantly  ap- 
pearing at  court  in  their  own  plays  or  as  assistants  in 
masques.  The  Revels  Office  frequently  lent  them  its 
splendid  devices  (as  rich  and  ingenious,  says  M.  Feuil- 
lerat,  as  any  the  best  of  modern  theatres  have  to  offer), ^ 
and  it  is  difficult  to  believe  that  they  could  have  returned 
to  their  own  theatres,  to  entertain,  be  it  remembered,  not 

1  Calendar  of  State  Papers,  Venetian,  XV,  67;  Rawdon  Brown,  Quarterly 
Review,  CII,  416;  Adams,  Shakespearean  Playhouses,  p.  279,  note  2. 

2  See  above,  p.  8. 

3  I.  e.,  the  cauldron  for  Marlowe's  Jew  of  Malta  {Papers,  p.  118;  Diary, 
I,  182). 

^  Le  Bureau  des  Menus-Plaisirs,  p.  61.  His  Documents  fully  bear  out  the 
statement  (see  above,  p.  164,  n.  5). 


250         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

only  the  groundlings  but  also  many  of  the  noblemen  who 
had  watched  them  at  court,  without  trying,  to  the  limit 
of  their  resources,  to  provide  equipment  like  that  of  their 
court  performances. 

Certainly  properties,  and  even  scenes  of  a  sort,  were  in 
use  at  an  early  date,  for  Dibdin  records  that  in  1554  the 
city  of  Edinburgh  allowed  to  one  Walter  Bynnyng  "the 
sowme  of  5li.  for  the  making  of  the  play  graith  andpaynt- 
ing  of  the  Landsenye^'  ^  and  there  was  a  "clothe  of  the 
Sone  &  Mone"  among  the  properties  of  the  Admiral's 
Men  in  1598.^  Many  of  Henslowe's  entries  covering  his 
loans  to  the  players  state  merely  that  they  went  towards 
buying  "divers  thinges"  for  this  or  that  play,  but  from 
time  to  time  we  hear  specifically  of  outlays  upon  certain 
definite  properties,  —  is.  3<^.,  for  example,  for  "a  tabell 
and  coffen,"  50J.  "for  mackynge  of  crownes  &  other 
thinges,"  Sj.  "to  bye  iiij  Lances  for  the  comody  of 
Thomas  Hewedes,"  and  20s.  "to  paye  the  paynter  of  the 
propertyes  for  the  play  of  the  iij  brothers."  ^  We  know 
also  that  the  Lady  Elizabeth's  Men  in  161 5  claimed  from 
Henslowe  the  considerable  sum  of  £40  for  arras  (they  do 
not  say  whether  or  not  it  was  decayed  and  old!)  "and 
other  properties  w*^^  Mr.  Henchlow  deteyneth,"  and 
that  at  the  Salisbury  Court  in  1639  provision  was  made, 
not  only  for  a  daily  supply  of  rushes  for  the  stage,  but  also 
for  "lights  .  .  .  coles  to  all  the  roomes  .  .  .  flowers 
.  .  .  and  all  the  boyes  new  gloves  at  every  new  play  and 
every  revived  play."  ^ 

No  one  knows  just  what  properties  Shakspere's  com- 
pany used,  but  it  is  a  safe  guess  that  Shakspere  would  not 
have  had  his  fling  at  the  palpable  gross  play  of  Pyramus 
and  Thisbe,  with  its  rustic  "bill  of  properties,"  ^  if  the 

1  Annals  oj  the  Edinburgh  Stage,  pp.  8-9.  ^  Papers,  p.  117. 

'  Diary,  I,  183,  145,  180,  184. 

*  Papers,  p.  89;  Halliwell-Phillipps,  Illustrations,  p.  86. 

*  Midsummer  Night' s  Dream,  \,  1,  109;  v,  1,  107. 


THE  PLAYHOUSES  251 

tiring-house  of  the  Globe  and  Blackfriars  had  not  been 
pretty  well  furnished.  That  the  Rose  was  by  no  means 
badly  off  in  this  respect  we  know,  for  Henslowe  has  left 
an  inventory  of  the  properties  of  the  Admiral's  Men  in 
1598.  This  document  lists  all  sorts  and  conditions  of 
things,  —  a  Golden  Fleece,  Phaethon's  chariot,  Kent's 
wooden  leg,  three  imperial  crowns,  one  ghost's  crown  and 
one  common  ordinary  one,  the  three  heads  of  Cerberus, 
two  coffins,  a  rainbow,  an  altar,  a  tree  of  golden  apples, 
two  moss-banks.  Hell-mouth,  the  City  of  Rome,  a  leather 
hatchet,  two  steeples  and  a  chime  of  bells,  with  a  large 
and  promiscuous  assortment  of  clubs,  lances,  rocks, 
cages,  lions,  bears,  horses,  and  black  dogs.^  It  is  an  array 
that  suggests  comparison  with  the  bill  of  properties 
recited  by  the  player  in  the  third  act  of  Brome's  Anti- 
podes^ and  therefore  particularly  applicable  to  the  Salis- 
bury Court  Theatre,  where  that  piece  was  acted  in  1638: 

Our  statues  and  our  images  of  Gods;  our  Planets  and  our  constella- 
tions, 
Our  Giants,  Monsters,  Furies,  Beasts,  and  Bug-Beares, 
Our  Helmets,  Shields,  and  Vizors,  Haires,  and  Beards, 
Our  Pastbord  March-paines,  and  our  Wooden  Pies.^ 

With  the  Restoration  came  scenery y  as  we  understand 
the  term  to-day.  The  usual  statement,  —  that  D'Ave- 
nant  was  the  first  to  use  scenes  in  the  public  theatre,  —  is 
misleading,^  but  he  did  give  the  initial  impulse  (in  1656) 
to  the  new  developments  in  "the  art  of  prospective  in 
scenes."  His  rivals  sought  at  once  to  imitate  and,  if  pos- 
sible, to  surpass  him.  When  Drury  Lane  was  rebuilt  for 
the  King's  Men  in  1673,  ^^ey  devoted  £160  to  the  con- 
struction and  equipment  of  a  special  "scene  house  .  .  . 
for  the  making  and  providing"  of  scenery  in  the  grand 
style.^  To  describe  the  properties  of  this  and  later  times, 

'  Papers,  pp.  116-118.  2  Quarto  of  1640,  sig.  G  v°. 

^  See  above,  p.  250,  and  cf.  Lowe,  Betterton,  p.  6. 
*  Shakespeare  Society  Papers,  IV,  147-148. 


252         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

meanwhile,  I  shall  draw  once  more  upon  Dr.  Reynard- 
son's  poem  to  Addison.   In  the  "tire-room"  he  writes, 

All  their  Stores  (a  merry  Medley)  sleep, 

Without  Distinction  hudled  in  a  Heap: 

Hung  on  the  self  same  Peg,  in  Union  rest 

Young  Tarquin's  Trowsers,  and  I-ucretia's  Vest  .  .  . 

Hard  by  a  Quart  of  bottled  Light'ning  lies, 

A  Bowl  of  double  Use  and  monstrous  Size  .  .  . 

Near  these  sets  up  a  Dragon-drawn  Calash, 

There's  a  Ghost's  Doublet  delicately  slash'd 

Bleeds  from  the  mangled  Breast,  and  gapes  a  frightful  Gash.  .  .  . 

Here  Iris  bends  her  various  painted  Arch, 

There  artificial  Clouds  in  sullen  Order  march, 

Here  stands  a  Crown  upon  a  Rack,  and  there 

A  Witch's  Broomstick  by  great  Hectors  Spear; 

Here  stands  a  Throne,  and  there  the  Cynick's  Tub, 

Here  Bullock's  Cudgel,  there  Alcides'  Club. 

Beads,  Plumes,  and  Spangles,  in  Confusion  rise. 

Whilst  Racks  of  Cornish  Diamonds  reach  the  Skies. 

Crests,  Corslets,  all  the  Pomp  of  Battle  join, 

In  one  Effulgence,  one  promiscuous  shine.^ 

Or,  to  turn  from  Reynardson's  poesy  to  the  prose  of  the 
genial  Pepys  —  concerning  the  tiring  house  of  the  King's 
Men  in  1666:  "To  see  .  .  .  what  a  mixture  of  things 
there  was;  here  a  wooden  leg;  there  a  ruff,  here  a  hobby 
horse,  there  a  crown,  would  make  a  man  split  himself  to 
see  with  laughing."  ^ 

If  I  had  quoted  the  whole  of  Henslowe's  list,  the  reader 
would  agree,  I  think,  that  as  regards  promiscuity  and 
variety  the  Elizabethan  tiring  house,  after  all,  was  not  far 
behind.  And  in  spite  of  the  lavishness  of  the  eighteenth- 
century  theatre,  its  property-men  still  used  some  of  the 
old  "wooden  pies"  of  the  Salisbury  Court,  or  their  lineal 
descendants.  O'Keeffe  tells  of  a  hungry  Irish  actor  who 
looked  forward  joyously  to  the  feast  of  excellent  roast 
fowl  and  wine  called  for  in  the  last  scene  of  High  Life  he- 

1  In  Egerton's  Lije  oj  Mrs.  Oldfield,  pp.  197-198. 
*  March  19,  1666. 


THE  PLAYHOUSES  253 

low  Stairs  J  only  to  be  bitterly  disappointed,  —  for  his 
skillfully  directed  fork  failed  to  make  an  impression  upon 
the  "painted  timber"  with  which  the  property-man  had 
sought  to  fill  the  bill,  and  the  wine  was  "mere  coloured 
element."  ^ 

I  have  already  suggested  that  in  the  matter  of  costum- 
ing, also,  Shakspere  was  by  no  means  so  badly  limited  by 
the  paucity  of  his  company's  wardrobe  as  Malone  imag- 
ined. Years  ago  Oscar  Wilde  contributed  to  The  Nine- 
teenth Century  2  an  interesting  and  scholarly  article,  in 
which  he  proved  conclusively  that  Shakspere  drew  lib- 
erally upon  the  resources  of  his  costumer  to  aid  his 
audiences  in  visualizing  the  drama.  Henslowe's  records, 
once  more,  show  that  the  rivals  of  Shakspere's  company 
did  as  much;  and,  as  usual,  these  records  furnish  informa- 
tion in  detail.  Among  other  things,  they  indicate  that 
the  players  spent  large  sums  for  costumes,  though  they 
could  not  equal  the  splendor  of  the  court  dresses  of  the 
period,  which  sometimes  swallowed  up  hundreds  of 
pounds  for  a  single  garment. ^  But  they  went  as  far  as 
their  resources  allowed.  Thus,  in  1598,  William  Bird, 
Admiral's  Man  and  playwright,  borrowed  a  pound  "to 
bye  a  payer  of  sylke  stockens"  to  play  the  Duke  of  Guise 
in,  while  Henslowe  himself  paid  £3  los.  for  "a  robe  for 
to  go  invisibell"  and  "a  gown  for  Nembia,"  and  £7  more 
for  "a  dublett  of  whitt  satten  layd  thicke  with  gowld 
lace  "  and  a  pair  of  hose  of  cloth  of  silver.'*  It  was  in  this 
year  also  that  the  Admiral's  Men  bought  from  Francis 
Langley  of  the  Swan  "  a  riche  clocke"  —  that  is  to  say,  a 
cloak  —  which  cost  them  £19,  while  John  AUeyn,  brother 

1  Recollections,  I,  i6o.  2  May,  1885,  XVII,  800  flF. 

^  In  1613  a  gown  of  Lady  Wotton's  "cost  fifty  pound  a  yard  the  em- 
broidering" and  Lord  Montague  "bestowed  fifteen  hundred  pound  in  ap- 
parell  for  his  two  daughters"  (Nichols,  Progresses  oj  James  I,  II,  588; 
Birch,  The  Court  and  Times  oJ  James  1, 1, 226;  SuUivan,  Court  Masques,  p.  71). 
King  Charles's  Shrovetide  masque  costume  in  1640  cost  £120  (Collier,  II,  23). 

*  Diary,  I,  72;  Papers,  p.  123. 


254         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

of  Edward  Alleyn,  had  paid  over  £20  for  another  the- 
atrical cloak  seven  years  earlier.^  Fifty  dollars  for  a  pair 
of  silk  stockings,  and  a  thousand  for  a  cloak,  such  —  in 
modern  equivalents  —  was  the  niggardly  outlay  of  the 
Elizabethans  upon  their  stage-dresses!  No  wonder,  then, 
that  they  strove  to  keep  them  in  good  repair,  —  that 
Henslowe's  "littell  tayllor"  should  have  been  much  in  de- 
mand, "for  the  mending  of  Hew  Daves  tanye  cotte  .  .  . 
w*^^  was  eatten  w^''  the  Rattes"  ^  and  for  many  another 
odd  job.  Even  the  Revels  Office  made  a  regular  allow- 
ance for  airing  and  repairing  vestures,  properties,  and 
furniture,  and  went  so  far  as  to  "translate"  six  Hun- 
garians' garments  with  long  sleeves  into  "  wemens  kirtels 
of  Dianas  Nymphes  .  .  .  and  the  winges  and  collors  of 
the  patriarkes  maske."  ^ 

One  or  two  more  points  of  information  from  Henslowe, 
and  we  have  done.  It  is  worth  noting  that  the  money  the 
Admiral's  Men  borrowed  from  him  between  1597  and 
1602  was  equally  divided  between  payments  to  the  play- 
wrights and  payments  for  costumes  and  properties:  ap- 
proximately £625  to  the  former,  £600  for  the  latter,  with 
£115  for  miscellaneous  expenditure.  The  Admiral's 
Men  produced  some  seventy-five  new  plays  during  this 
period,  of  which  about  fifty  are  specifically  named  in  the 
entries  that  have  to  do  with  the  purchase  of  properties 
and  costumes,  the  average  expenditure  for  each  (so  far  as 
is  shown  by  the  Diary)  amounting  to  £8  los.  The  outlay, 
naturally,  varies  considerably  from  play  to  play,  since 
some  could  be  more  readily  fitted  out  from  the  stock 
than  others.  It  ranges  from  ^s.  for  buckram  for  Crack  Me 
this  Nut  (1601)  to  £38  ins.  2d.  for  the  elaborate  produc- 
tion of  the  first  part  of  Cardinal  Wolsey  in  the  same  year. 
The  Seven  Wise  Masters  (1600)  was  also  put  on  at  a  cost 

*  Diary,  I,  96;  II,  130;  Collier,  Alleyn  Papers,  p.  12. 

2  Diary,  I,  150,  151,  etc. 

2  Feuillerat,  Documents,  Elizabeth,  pp.  19,  360. 


THE  PLAYHOUSES  255 

of  £38,  and  sixteen  plays  cost  from  £10  to  £20  each.^  All 
this  helps  to  explain  a  point  made  in  a  previous  chapter, 

—  namely,  that  Shakspere  probably  received  £100  for 
his  stock  when  he  retired.-  Since  his  company  probably 
had  ten  sharers,  its  stock  would  have  been  worth  £1,000. 
This  would  mean  that  it  owned  a  quantity  of  expensive 
apparel,  for  old  plays  were  valued  only  at  £2  or  £3  each,' 
and  theatrical  conditions  were  too  precarious  to  let  good- 
will count  for  much.  The  value  of  stock,  then  and  later, 
depended  largely  upon  the  potential  strength  of  its 
holders,  for  sales  to  outsiders  brought  but  small  returns. 
Fitzgerald  quotes  a  letter  that  Sir  John  Vanbrugh  wrote 
in  1713  concerning  the  Haymarket  stock  brought  back  to 
Drury  Lane.*  "It  was  the  richest  and  completest  stock, 
that  ever  any  company  had  in  England,  consisting  of  all 
that  was  in  Lincoln's  Lin  Fields  (for  which  I  gave  500/.) " 

—  a  small  sum  for  those  days. 

For,  having  once  shown  that  Elizabethan  playhouses 
and  productions  were  not  of  rudeness  all  compact,  we 
should  be  ill-advised  not  to  recognize  the  superior 
splendors  of  the  Restoration.  Downes,  for  one,  reminds 
us  enthusiastically  of  the  new  glories  o^  Macbeth,  dressed 
in  all  its  finery  of  D'Avenant's  devising,  —  "new 
Cloath's,  new  Scenes,  Machines,  as  flyings  for  the 
Witches;  with  all  the  Singing  and  Dancing,"  ^  while 
Pepys  delighted  in  Hamlet,  "done  with  scenes  very  well," 
and  marvelled  at  the  "droll"  costumes  of  the  seamen  and 
monsters  of  The  Tetnpest.  He  it  is  also  who  tells  of  King 
Charles  IFs  gift  of  £500  to  his  company  for  the  scarlet 
robes  of  Catiline.^  Downes,  once  more,  tells  how  "the 
long  expected  Opera  oi  Psyche  came  forth"  in  1674  "in 

1  Diary,  I,  82-173;  II,  218,  135-137,  175  flr. 

2  See  above,  p.  75. 

^  Diary,  I,  83,  84,  96;  II,  190,  198. 

*  See  above,  pp.  130-13 1;  Fitzgerald,  I,  283. 
^  Roscius  Anglicanus,  p.  t,;^. 

*  August  24,  1 66 1,  and  May  11,  1668;  see  above,  p.  164. 


256         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

all  her  Ornaments;  new  Scenes,  new  Machines,  new 
Cloaths,  new  French  Dances  .  .  .  Splendidly  set  out, 
especially  in  Scenes;  the  Charge  of  which  amounted  to 
above  800/."  ^  And  Colley  Cibber  adduces  a  later  case  in 
point,  —  the  revival  of  Dryden's  All  for  Love  in  1718: 
"The  Habits  of  that  Tragedy  amounted  to  an  expense  of 
near  Six  Hundred  Pounds;  a  Sum  unheard  of,  for  many 
Years  before,  on  the  like  Occasions."  ^ 

Such  an  outlay,  however,  was  anything  but  unheard-of 
for  the  outfitting  of  those  tall  ships  of  burthen  that  were 
relied  on  to  bring  home  the  Indies,  —  the  Pantomimes. 
"In  the  Decoration  of  these  Raree-shews,"  Victor  notes, 
"a  Thousand  Pounds,  or  upwards,  were  generally  ex- 
pended," 3  and  we  have  already  seen  how  unequivocally 
the  town  approved  of  them.  Indeed,  as  time  went  on, 
the  scale  of  expenditure  expanded  in  geometrical  ratio. 
In  1799,  Harris,  the  manager  of  Covent  Garden,  who  was 
then  engaged  in  a  controversy  with  his  players,  stated^ 
that  he  had  spent  £40,000  for  "new  scenery  and  decora- 
tions of  that  nature"  since  1774,  when  he  took  over  the 
management.  Under  the  circumstances  it  is  not  alto- 
gether astonishing  that  the  tail  sometimes  wagged  the 
dog,  that  scenery  was  sometimes  more  important  than 
plays.  An  entry  under  the  year  1790,  in  Oul ton's  History 
of  the  Theatres^^  strikes  a  not  unfamiliar  note.  Covent 
Garden  in  that  year  produced  The  Crusade ^  "an  historical 
Romance,  by  Mr.  Reynolds.  This  piece  was  written  for 
the  purpose  of  introducing  some  scenery  which  had  been 
painted  for  an  unsuccessful  play.  It  did  not  add  to  the 
author's  fame." 

The  costuming  continued  to  be  proportionately  elabo- 
rate and  costly.  Dr.  Doran  tells  us  that  Mrs.  Siddons  and 
John  Kemble  wore  costumes  worth  £500  in  a  single  per- 

1  Pp.  35-36.  ■*  Observations  on  Statement  of  Differences. 

2  apology,  II,  175-176.         8  11^  j;8^ 

3  I,  44. 


THE  PLAYHOUSES  257 

formance  at  Covent  Garden,^  and  others  before  them  in 
time  were  not  far  behind  them  in  splendor.  A  printed  let- 
ter to  Garrick  On  his  Having  Purchased  a  Patent  for 
Drury-Lane  Play-House  (1747)  is  worth  quoting  in  this 
connection  because  the  anonymous  writer  castigates  the 
"Extravagance  of  Dress  which  of  late  glitters  on  the 
Stage,"  and,  without  renewing  the  old  Puritan  animad- 
versions on  this  score,  quite  reasonably  holds  this  ex- 
travagance responsible  for  "the  unnecessary  Load  of 
Expences"  then  resting  upon  the  several  managers. 

There  was  a  Time  when  the  best  Actors  contented  them- 
selves with  a  new  Suit  at  each  new  Play,  and  then  too  thought 
they  were  very  fine  in  Tinsel  Lace  and  Spangles;  but  some  of 
our  present  Heroes  must  not  only  have  a  new  Habit  for  every 
New  Part,  but  several  Habits  for  the  same  Part,  if  the  Play 
continues  to  be  acted  for  any  Number  of  Nights:  I  have  taken 
Notice  of  one  in  particular,  who  is  rarely  seen  twice  in  one 
Garb.  —  These  Habits  must  also  be  as  rich  as  Fancy  can 
invent  or  Money  purchase,  —  In  fine,  nothing  worse  will 
suffice  to  appear  in  even  the  Character  of  a  Town-Rake,  but 
such  as  would  become  a  Prince  of  the  Blood  on  a  Birth-Day, 
or  a  foreign  Ambassador  on  his  public  Entry .^ 

With  this  sort  of  thing  the  rule  everywhere,  it  is  re- 
freshing to  hear  of  an  occasional  exception,  —  of  Samuel 
Foote,  for  example,  and  the  happy-go-lucky,  devil-may- 
care  fashion  in  which  he  mounted  his  pieces.  They 
were  born  of  his  wit  and  lived  by  it,  and  so  it  mattered 
little  if  he  did  sometimes  introduce  eleventh-hour  bor- 
rowings from  secondhand  clothes  shops.  If  the  things  did 
not  fit  the  actors,  Foote  nevertheless  made  them  fit  his 
necessities,  and  the  jokes  he  improvised  to  set  them  off 
were  better  liked  by  his  audiences  than  carefully  chosen 
costumes  might  have  been.^  In  general,  however,  man- 
agers, playwrights,  and  audiences  of  the  seventeenth  and 
1  II,  363.  2  p.  ig, 

^  Fitzgerald,  II,  277;  Cooke,  Memoirs  of  Foote. 


258         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

eighteenth  centuries  lived  by  a  different  philosophy,  — 
one  which  is  not  yet  altogether  out  of  fashion.  James 
Ralph  phrased  it  neatly  long  ago: 

I  defy  any  of  our  best  tragick  Bards,  so  readily  to  give  an 
Audience  a  true  Idea  of  a  Queen,  by  the  noblest  Sentiments, 
or  finest  Language,  as  the  Wardrobe-Keeper  can  by  half  a 
Dozen  lac'd  Pages,  and  as  many  Yards  of  embroidered  Tail. 
...  I  have  known  a  Tragedy  succeed,  by  the  irresistable 
Force  of  a  Squadron  of  Turkish  Turbans  and  Scimiters;  and, 
another  owe  the  whole  of  its  Merit  to  the  graceful  Procession 
of  a  Mufti,  and  a  Tribe  of  Priests.  A  Poet  who  fights  cunning, 
will  judiciously  throw  into  every  Act  a  Triumph,  a  Wedding, 
a  Funeral,  a  Christening,  a  Feast,  or  some  such  Spectacle, 
which  must  be  manag'd  by  a  Multitude.  Thus  by  a  well- 
dispos'd  Succession  of  Crowds  in  every  Scene,  he  lies,  as  it 
were,  save  under  Cover  from  all  Criticism.^ 

4.   Advertising 

Theatrical  advertising  is  as  old  as  the  theatre  itself — 
and  naturally  so,  for  what  institution  has  greater  need  of 
keeping  the  public  informed  of  what  it  is  doing?  Every 
one  is  familiar  with  the  methods  used  to-day  to  convey 
and  adorn  the  necessary  information,  for  the  billboard, 
the  newspaper,  and  the  magazine  are  always  with  us. 
Earlier  times  had  simpler  ways,  to  be  sure,  but  it  is  sur- 
prising to  observe  how  closely  they  approximated  some 
of  the  most  effective  advertising  devices  of  to-day.  To 
look  at  the  old  and  the  new  side  by  side  is  to  become  con- 
firmed in  the  conviction  that  there  is  nothing  new  under 
the  footlights  —  or  in  their  immediate  neighborhood. 
Let  it  be  granted  at  once  that  the  Elizabethans  did  not 
post  the  names  of  their  stars  in  great  electric  letters  over 
their  playhouse  doors,  nor  yet  print  them  in  great  inky 
letters  in  the  daily  press.  They  had  neither  stars  nor 
electric  light  nor  a  daily  press,  except  that  which  supplied 

>  The  Taste  oj  the  Town,  1731,  pp.  82-83. 


/Jeltvrrfn^'f  I' /ay  Ivlls  ///  f//r  fo/znlry. 

Mv  fm  Ann/^zranr^,'no//  ff/\    //on,    /; 
J'fr.tr?  ffdmuf  fJt/'Cira/  rrini  e  of  Drritnark . 


lEAR^E  (Samuel).     Bixdixg.     Shadwell  (Thomas).     Psyche.     1675. 

{See  No.    315.?). 


-..     SC/IKRONS 

A  COMJCAL  ROMANCl 


'M^-^m-TTmrr-n 


rr 1',  ■  |i''»l';'iWriw^' 


Jritif.J  fiu-  WCivrk,'  f /////,■.// V, 7/ J^r, Ml'//  ivillLuit'lrinrl,-  Biirr 


ScARRON  (Paul).     Comical  Romance.     1676. 
(See  No.    3209.) 


THE  PLAYHOUSES  259 

broadsides  for  the  ballad-mongers,  and  yet  they  managed 
to  keep  the  public  well  informed  as  to  what  was  going  on. 
Their  simplest  devices  have  long  been  known,  though 
we  hardly  think  of  the  Elizabethan  origin  of  certain  late 
survivals  of  them.  Some  of  our  modern  theatres  fly  flags 
of  as  brave  silk,  perhaps,  as  that  which  the  Admiral's 
Men  bought  for  their  house  in  1602.  Fortunately  for 
these  aftertimes,  however,  we,  unlike  the  Elizabethans, 
scarcely  need  the  flag  signal  ^  to  assure  us  that  no  plague 
or  suppression  is  in  the  air,  and  that  the  players  will 
enact.  More  brilliant  and  efl^ective  than  mere  flags  were 
the  players'  processions  through  country  and  town,  — 
sometimes  through  London  itself,  to  the  disgust  of  the 
Puritans,  —  with  drums  throbbing  and  trumpets  sound- 
ing to  call  the  faithful  to  the  play.  Sometimes  they 
marched  forth  boldly  in  defiance  of  official  orders  pro- 
hibiting their  processions;  but  many  country  towns  wel- 
comed them  with  open  arms,  allowed  them  to  play  in  the 
town  hall,  and  gave  them  good  meat  and  drink  by  way  of 
public  welcome,  an  audience  graced  by  the  presence  of 
the  mayor  and  his  brethren  at  the  first  performance  (the 
so-called  town-play),  and  a  reward  from  the  town  purse 
to  supplement  their  "gatherings."  ^  London,  of  course, 
was  too  sophisticated  and  too  well  supplied  with  actors  to 
indulge  in  this  sort  of  thing,  and  the  Puritan  city  fathers 
did  not  often  tolerate  the  histrionic  drum  and  trumpet. 
In  the  country,  however,  one  actor  or  another  "led  the 
drum  before  the  English  tragedians"  for  many  and  many 
a  long  year  after  the  last  of  the  Elizabethans.  In  the  case 
of  the  later  strolling  companies,  says  the  author  of  the 
Memoirs  of  the  Countess  of  Derby  (1797),^  "the  strictest 

1  In  time  of  war,  writes  Dekker,  "Play-houses  stand  ...  the  dores 
locked  vp,  the  Flagges  .  .  .  taken  down.  {Worke  for  Armorours,  1609, 
Grosart,  IV,  96).  Cf.  Middleton,  A  Mad  World,  my  Masters,  \,  \,  and  The 
Roaring  Girl,  iv,  2  (Bullen,  III,  254-255;  IV,  107). 

2  Cf.  the  writer's  article  on  The  Travelling  Players,  Modern  Philology, 
XVII,  489  ff.  3  Pp.  12-13. 


26o         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

economy  is  necessary."  Hence  they  carry  only  a  very 
small  number  of  printed  bills,  but,  "to  make  amends  for 
this  defect,"  they  distribute  them  "by  beat  of  Drum,  in 
order  that  their  arrival  and  intentions  may  be  known  to 
every  inhabitant.  A  Drum,  on  this  account,  always 
makes  a  part  of  the  Property  of  a  Country  Company." 
And  who,  even  in  these  latter  days,  does  not  recall  with 
pleasure  a  circus  procession  or  a  barnstormers'  parade 
that  gloriously  upheld  the  ancient  traditions? 

Playbills  would  seem  to  have  been  almost  as  widely 
used  from  the  very  beginning,  comparatively  speaking, 
as  they  are  now.  As  early  as  1563,  Archbishop  Grindall 
objected  to  the  players'  setting  up  their  bills  on  every 
post,  and  Northbrooke  and  other  zealous  Puritans  railed 
in  vain  against  them  in  succeeding  years. ^  The  earliest 
bills  were  in  manuscript  (a  Bear  Garden  poster  of  this 
sort  is  still  extant  at  Dulwich  College)  ^  but  by  1587  the 
demand  had  become  substantial  enough  to  lead  John 
Charlewood  to  obtain  a  monopoly  for  "the  onelye  ym- 
pryntinge  of  all  manner  of  Billes  for  players."  ^  The 
chances  are  that  his  copy  ran  much  like  the  titles 
of  Elizabethan  playbook  quartos,  at  which  Shakspere 
poked  fun  in  his  "  tedious  brief  scene  of  young  Pyramus 
and  his  love  Thisbe,"  and  Jonson  in  his  playbill  of  "the 
ancient  modern  history  of  Hero  and  Leander"  in  Bar- 
tholomew Fair^  Taylor  the  Water  Poet  tells  the  good  old 
story  about  Nathaniel  Field,  the  great  actor  and  play- 
wright of  the  Lady  Elizabeth's  Men,  who  was  stopped 
once  upon  a  time  when  he  was  on  an  urgent  journey,  only 
to  be  asked  what  play  was  on  the  programme  for  that 
day.  When  he  inquired  angrily  why  he  should  have  been 

1  Northbrooke,  A  Treatise  against  Dicing,  etc.,  ed.  Collier,  p.  io2;  Induc- 
tion to  A  Warning  for  Fair  Women,  1 599;  Halliwell-Phillipps,  Illustrations,  p. 
108. 

2  Warner,  Catalogue  oj  Dulwich  College  Manuscripts,  p.  83. 
'  Stationers'  Register,  Arber,  II,  222;  Malone,  III,  154. 

*  V,  3;  Midsummer  Night's  Dream,  v,  i. 


THE  PLAYHOUSES  261 

stopped  for  so  trifling  a  cause,  his  interlocutor,  a  right 
Elizabethan,  replied  that  Field  had  been  riding  so 
rapidly  that  he  had  been  taken  for  —  a.post\^  A  half- 
century  or  so  later,  Pepys  frequently  went  to  the  posts  — 
the  fixed  posts,  however  —  to  find  out  what  the  theatres 
had  to  offer,  and  he  records  also  that  the  next  day's  of- 
fering was  regularly  announced  at  the  close  of  each  per- 
formance ^ —  just  as  the  next  programme  is  billed,  or 
flashed  on  the  screen,  in  the  music-halls  and  picture 
houses  to-day. 

Taylor's  contribution  to  the  subject  of  playbills  does 
not  end  with  his  story  of  Field's  post-haste  expedition, 
for  he  says  among  other  things  that  he  himself,  in  1614, 
"caused  to  be  printed"  a  thousand  bills  to  advertise  the 
great  wit-combat  between  him  and  Fennor  which  was 
destined  to  be  fought  out  only  with  pen  and  ink.^  Most 
of  the  thousand  must  have  been  not  poster-bills,  but 
handbills  intended  for  distribution  among  Taylor's  friends 
and  the  gentry.  Ben  Jonson,  in  The  Devil  is  an  Ass 
and  Bartholomew  Fair,  refers  to  the  use  of  such  hand- 
bills,^ and  Mr.  W.  J.  Lawrence  has  reproduced  an  extant 
specimen,,  of  the  year  1602,  which  advertises  a  special 
performance  of  England's  Joy  at  the  Swan  Theatre,  by  a 
company  of  ladies  and  gentlemen  which  had  no  existence 
except  in  the  brain  of  the  fraudulent  projector,  one  Rich- 
ard Vennar,  who  was  arrested  before  he  could  decamp 
with  the  receipts. °  This  bill  is  a  well-printed  broadside, 
and  marks  a  step  toward  the  development  of  the  theatre 
programme  in  that  it  attempts  a  synopsis  of  the  proposed 
action,  though  it  lacks  the  lists  of  characters  and  actors, 
and  other  information  which  we  have  come  to  look  for  in 
our  programmes.    The  evolution  of  the  programme  may 

^  Taylor,  Works,  1630,  p.  183  (345). 

2  For  quotations  from  Pepys  on  this  point,  see  Lowe,  Betterton,  p.  31. 

«  Works,  p.  143  (305).  _ 

*  The  Devil  Is  an  Ass,  i,  2;  Bartholomew  Fair,  v,  3. 

*  Elizabethan  Playhouse,  II,  68-71. 


262         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

be  followed  in  detail  in  Mr.  Lawrence's  exhaustive  study 
and  in  Professor  Graves's  notes. ^  For  our  purposes,  it  is 
sufficient  to  observe  that  the  early  playbills  made  but  a 
rudimentary  sort  of  programme,  for  they  did  not  list 
players  and  parts  until  after  1700.  Occasional  broadside 
"descriptions  of  the  great  Machines,"  however,  to- 
gether with  many  prints  of  prologues  and  epilogues,  had 
been  sold  at  first  outside  (later  inside)  the  theatres  even 
in  the  sixties.  In  the  course  of  time  such  material  found 
its  way  into  the  bills,  which  still  served  "indifferently  as 
placard  or  programme."  After  the  lists  of  players  and 
parts  were  added,  the  programme  as  we  know  it  had 
practically  come  into  its  own.  Then  as  now  programmes 
were  sold  in  the  theatres  of  London  by  the  orange  girls, 
and  from  time  immemorial  the  stalls  and  boxes  have  en- 
joyed the  privilege  of  paying  more  than  the  pit  and  gal- 
leries —  for  the  additional  advertising  matter  in  their 
programmes. 

Then  as  now,  also,  the  actors  and  actresses  loved  to  see 
their  names  in  big  letters,  though  they  had  no  electric 
light  to  cast  an  additional  beam.  Still,  so  late  as  1715, 
all  names  appeared  in  the  bills  in  uniform  type  and,  as 
Chetwood  2  says,  in  the  order  of  their  "dramatic  dig- 
nity," —  with  Duncan,  King  of  Scotland,  first  in  Mac- 
beth. But  before  long  it  was  difficult  to  find  letters  large 
enough  to  please  this  or  that  distinguished  player,  "and 
some  were  so  fond  of  elbow-room  that  they  woud  have 
shoved  everybody  out  but  themselves."  More  than  one 
manager  since  then  has  tried  to  abolish  this  particular 
sort  of  display  advertising  ^  —  but  the  star  system  was 

1  Lawrence,  Origin  of  the  Theatre  Progrmnme  {Elizabethan  Playhouse^ 
II,  57  ff.);  T.  S.  Graves,  Notes  on  the  Elizabethan  Theatres,  Studies  in  Phi- 
lology, XVII,  175  ff.  Elizabethan  playbook  quartos  also,  with  a  few  impor- 
tant exceptions,  did  not  print  the  names  of  the  actors.  Cf.  James  Wright, 
Historia  Histrionica,  1699. 

2  P.  59;  Lawrence,  II,  87. 

'  See  Genest,  VII,  57-58;  Fitzgerald,  II,  342;  Apology,  I,  239. 


At  the  Defire  of  fcveral  Perfons  of  Quality. 

AT  il-c  T  H  E  A  T  R  E    R  0  Y  A  L  in  Prury-Une, 
Vd^  p.eiciM   T^uJ,*}    being    the      i8ch     day     cf 
^    .;;^,    will   be  pre*;  iitcd. 

The  L-a!l  i^criv'd  «,  om^dy  caii'd, 

The  A  Jap  e,  Or,  Virtue  in  Danger. 

Whh  Smgbg  b  Italian  and  Eogliib  by  Mrs  CamptoiL 

All")  re>^=Tal  Eitertnnmencs  of  Dincina,  by  the  Famous 
MM-iv-MT  )'  l-i:i,  Muiici'irly  a;i  Excraoidiiury  Comical 
Couiury.  M.'.i.  iv^ancenevei  perfoiinM  before, 

And  SigniorGafperini  will  perform  feveral  Sonata's  on  the 
Violin,  one  between  Mr.  Paifible  and  him,  and  another  be- 
tween him,  and  a  Scholar  of  his,  being  the  lalb  time  of  his 
performance. 

For  his  own  Benefit. 
To  be-;'^n  exa£lU'  at  half  an  hour  afttr  Five. 

BoKes^^fh.  Pir.i    iTi.  Fir fl  ("j lit ry  .2  fh.  Upper  Gallery  i  fh. 
Ho  Ai  jfiry  to  fe<  Kccuro'O  .ittcr  ths  Curtain  u  uiiA-n  ep, 

5y  Her  Miieily's  Scrvams.  Vtvat  Rcgifca. 


_j::±±XlSU2AI. 


THE  PLAYHOUSES  263 

never  more  popular  than  to-day,  and  never  have  the 
letters  been  so  big  or  so  brilliant.  Chetwood  had  been 
prompter  at  Drury  Lane,  and  he  knew  whereof  he  spoke. 
In  the  old  days  it  was  usually  the  business  of  the  prompter 
to  write  the  bill,  and,  by  that  token,  to  keep  the  peace 
among  the  players.  While  Wilks  was  in  the  Drury  Lane 
management,  however,  the  prompter  was  relieved  of  the 
task.  Colley  Cibber  rather  grudgingly  remarks  that  Wilks 
"actually  had  a  separate  Allowance  of  Fifty  Pounds  a 
Year  for  writing  our  daily  Play-Bills  for  the  Printer,"  ^  — 
a  duty  which  seems  hardly  so  "insignificant"  as  Cibber 
represents  it,  particularly  if  it  be  remembered  what  a 
deal  of  fine  rhetoric  went  into  the  making  of  playbills 
then  and  later. 

The  eighteenth  century  saw  the  first  theatre  pro- 
grammes approximating  those  of  to-day,  and  with  them 
the  first  printed  theatre  tickets.  When  people  "came  to 
see  plays"  in  Shakspere's  time,  "each  man"  —  accord- 
ing to  good  contemporary  authority  —  "sate  down  with- 
out respecting  of  persons,  for  he  that  first  comes  is  first 
seated,"  ^  that  is  to  say,  all  but  the  lucky  few  who  could 
afford  to  Hire  private  boxes,^  for  other  reserved  seats  or 
tickets  there  were  none,  generally  speaking.  But  one 
mention  of  them  in  Shakspere's  lifetime  has  come  to 
light,  and  that,  on  the  face  of  it,  has  to  do  with  an  excep- 
tional case,  —  a  performance  of  The  Hog  hath  lost  his 
Pearl  at  the  Whitefriars  in  1613.  Sir  Henry  Wotton 
writes  that  the  sixteen  lusty  apprentices  who  were  the 
actors  on  this  occasion  "invited  thither  (as  it  should 
seem)  rather  their  Mistresses  then  their  Masters;  who 
were  all  to  tnttv  per  buletini  for  a  note  of  distinction  from 
ordinary  Comedians."  ^    There  were  no  bulletini  when 

1  Apology,  II,  232. 

^  W.  Fennor,  Compters  Common-Wealth,  1617,  p.  8,  quoted  by  Collier,  III, 
145.  '  Cf.  Straford  Letters,  1739,  I,  511. 

^  Reliquice  Wottoniance,  3d  ed.,  1672,  p.  402;  Lije  and  Letters,  ed,  L,  P. 
Smith,  II,  pp.  13-14. 


264         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

Dekker's  Gull  went  to  the  theatre,  but  admission  "by 
ballatine  or  tickets  sealed"  was  a  novelty  specifically 
provided  for  in  D'Avenant's  contract  with  his  players  in 
1660.1  We  have  already  seen  that  Vincent's  gallant  of 
1674,  unlike  Dekker's,  was  provided  with  his  ticket, — 
and  so  were  little  Rose  in  The  Recruiting  Officer  (1706) 
and  Indiana  in  The  Conscious  Lovers  {I'ji'i).'^  The  earlier 
tickets,  however,  were  very  unlike  the  printed  ticket  of 
to-day.  They  were,  in  fact,  merely  crude  brass  checks 
about  the  size  of  a  quarter-of-a-doUar,  and,  like  the  pit 
and  gallery  checks  of  the  present-day  London  theatres, 
they  bore  no  indication  of  a  seat  number.^  These  metal 
tickets  were  used  for  all  parts  of  the  house  until  well  into 
the  nineteenth  century,  but  meanwhile,  "for  a  note  of 
distinction,"  —  that  is,  to  advertise  special  occasions, 
and  benefits  in  particular,  —  printed  tickets  were  intro- 
duced. Since  the  players  and  playwrights  were  in  the 
habit  of  writing  personally  to  their  friends  to  solicit  favor 
at  such  times,  they  naturally  sought  for  something  less 
clumsy  and  more  distinctive  than  the  usual  metal  check 
to  send  with  their  letters.  Here,  then,  we  have  the  ex- 
planation of  such  notices  as  the  following,  which  refers  to 
a  concert  ca.  1702:  —  "The  boxes  will  be  opened  into  the 
pit,  into  which  none  will  be  admitted  without  printed 
tickets,"  ^  and  for  the  fact  that  such  early  printed  tickets 
as  have  been  preserved  are  benefit  tickets.  I  have  else- 
where ^  described  at  length  one  such  ticket,  a  fine  engrav- 
ing of  a  scene  in  Congreve's  Old  Bachelor^  which  Hogarth 
prepared  for  his  friend  Joe  Miller's  benefit  at  Drury 
Lane  in  1717.  It  was  a  good  advertisement,  and  more 
artistic,  certainly,  than  the  tickets  of  to-day,  —  but  also 

1  Malone,  III,  260. 

*  See  above,  p.  228;  Recruiting  Officer,  iv,  i;  Conscious  Lovers,  ii,  2. 
3  Wilkinson's  Londina  Illustrata,  vol.  II,  last  plate. 

*  Quoted  by  Fitzgerald,  I,  228. 

*  See  Modern  Language  Review,  XV,  124  ff.,  for  further  discussion  and 
references. 


^c 


6)> 


iGALLEETi:/, 
4)> 


THE  PLAYHOUSES  265 

less  useful,  for  it  bore  no  sign  of  any  seat  reservation. 
Even  at  the  close  of  the  eighteenth  century,  playgoers 
who  wished  to  pay  tribute  to  Mrs.  Siddons  at  the  last 
benefit  of  that  great  actress,  had  to  send  their  servants 
hours  before  the  play  began,  to  hold  seats  for  them.  The 
boon  of  reserved  seats,  in  short,  was  not  attained  until 
the  nineteenth  century. 

One  word  more  concerning  playbills,  and  we  shall  be 
ready  to  turn  to  other  forms  of  advertising.  The  city  of 
London's  opposition  to  plays,  players  and  playbills,  did 
not  come  to  a  period  with  the  Restoration,  and  Lawrence 
has  called  attention  to  the  fact  that  the  Grand  Jury  in 
May,  1700  (influenced,  no  doubt,  by  Jeremy  Collier's 
attack  upon  the  theatres)  characterized  playgoing  as  a 
public  nuisance,  and  "  the  putting  up  bills  in  and  about 
this  city  for  playes"  as  "an  encouragement  to  vice  and 
prophannesse."  Accordingly,  they  asked  that  the  posting 
of  bills  be  forbidden,  —  a  request  to  which  the  Lord 
Mayor  and  aldermen  obligingly  acceded.^  This  prohibi- 
tory order  remained  more  or  less  efi^ective  for  at  least 
three  years,  and  Mr.  Lawrence  plausibly  suggests  that 
one  result  was  that  brief  theatrical  advertisements  began 
to  appear  in  the  newspapers  with  greater  frequency. 
Here  was  a  species  of  advertising  that  really  deserves  the 
adjective  novels  since  the  newspaper  itself  was  then  a 
comparatively  recent  institution.  In  Elizabethan  and 
Jacobean  times  the  theatres  did  get  a  certain  amount  of 
incidental  advertising  from  ballads  which  set  forth  the 
stories  of  their  plays,  —  Romeo  and  Juliet  and  The  Jew 
of  Malta,  for  example,  and  many  another.  Malone  ^  sug- 
gests that  these  ballads  were  hawked  "by  some  vociferous 
Autolycus,  who  perhaps  was  hired  by  the  players  thus  to 
raise  the  expectations  of  the  multitude,"  but  the  indica- 

1  Luttrell,  Brief  Historical  Relation  of  State  Affairs,  1857,  IV,  647  (Law- 
rence, II,  83  fF.). 
'  III,  155. 


266         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

tions  are  that  the  ballad-mongers  worked  for  the  play- 
book  publishers  rather  than  for  the  actors.^  At  all  events, 
what  there  was  of  such  advertising  was  casual  and  un- 
systematic. The  earliest  newspaper  advertisements  — 
real  advertisements  —  appeared  just  before  1700  in  such 
papers  as  The  Post  Boy  and  The  Daily  Courant^  but  they 
were  of  a  very  primitive  sort,  and  ordinarily  gave  nothing 
further  than  the  name  of  the  theatre  and  the  title  of  the 
play. 2  Before  long,  however,  advertisements  appeared 
regularly  day  by  day,  and  included  notices  of  future  per- 
formances as  well  as  complete  lists  of  principal  parts  and 
players.  Malone  ^  states  that  such  advertisments  first 
appeared  in  the  Spectator^  in  171 1,  but  as  a  matter  of  fact 
they  had  come  into  vogue  some  five  or  six  years  earlier. 
Take  for  example  that  in  the  T)aily  Courant  of  November 
13,  1706: 

At  the  Queen's  Theatre  in  the  Hay-Market,  this  present 
Wednesday,  being  the  13th  of  November,  will  be  presented 
a  Play,  call'd  The  Spanish  Fryar,  or  The  Double  Discovery. 
All  the  Parts  being  perform'd  to  the  best  Advantage.  Par- 
ticularly the  part  of  Torrismond  by  Mr.  Betterton,  Bertram 
by  Mr.  Mills,  Lorenzo  by  Mr.  Wilks,  Raymond  by  Mr.  Keen, 
Gomez  by  Mr.  Norris,  Father  Dominick  by  Mr.  Bullock, 
Leonora  by  Mrs.  Barry,  and  Elvira  by  Mrs.  Oldfield.  And 
to-morrow  will  be  presented  a  Comedy  (never  acted  there 
before)  call'd  The  Recruiting  Officer.  Most  of  the  Parts  being 
perform'd  as  they  were  originally.  These  Plays  are  sold  by  J. 
Knapton  at  the  Crown  in  St.  Paul's  Church-Yard  and  B. 
Lintott  next  Mando's  CofFee-House,  Temple  Bar. 

But  the  point  that  really  matters  is  that  long  before  the 
end  of  the  second  decade  of  the  eighteenth  century,  the- 
atrical advertisements  in  the  newspapers  and  periodicals 
had  become  an  established  thing.  Nor  was  it  long  before 

1  Cf.  Rollins,  Publications  oj  the  Modern  Language  Association,  XXXIV, 
296  ff. 

2  Lawrence,  II,  85.  ^  III,  154. 


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THE  PLAYHOUSES  267 

they  exhibited  certain  interesting  refinements  of  a  rather 
modern  sort.  John  O'Keeffe  tells  of  what  happened  in 
a  London  newspaper  office  about  the  period  of  the  sixties. 
The  compositor  was  setting  type  to  announce  a  benefit 
for  an  actor  named  Richard  Wilson.  Wilson  was  there 
to  supervise  the  work,  and  he  made  the  compositor  put 
the  whole  advertisement  upside  down.  "W'hy,"  said  he 
in  telling  the  story  to  O'Keeffe,  "a  person  looking  at  the 
paper  would  say  What's  this?  An  advertisement  reversed! 

—  oh^  Wilson's  benefit!  —  And  without  this  hum  perhaps 
my  advertisement  might  not  have  been  noticed  at  all, 
and  my  benefit  a  malafitT  ^ 

With  regular  paid  advertisements  there  developed  in 
the  course  of  time  something  like  regular  dramatic  criti- 
cism. But  (to  look  ahead  a  bit)  there  is  a  little  anecdote 
of  Frederick  Reynolds  which  suggests  that  such  criticism, 
then  as  now,  was  sometimes  amiably  irregular.  Not  far 
from  1790,  it  seems,  Reynolds  asked  "a  late  leading 
critic"  to  be  kind  in  his  review  of  a  certain  comedy.  The 
play  was  by  one  of  Reynolds's  particular  friends,  and  the 
genial  critic  invited  him  to  write  the  review  himself. 
Reynolds  straightway  informed  the  author,  and  that  gen- 
tleman vowed  he  would  do  it  himself.  His  review,  which 
was  printed  verbatim,  informed  the  town  that  the  first 
four  acts  "were  not  inferior  in  point  of  plot,  incident,  lan- 
guage, and  character,  to  the  greatest  efforts  of  Beaumont 
and  Fletcher  and  other  old  dramatists,"  and  that  "the 
last  act  might  probably  be  considered  one  of  the  finest  on 
any  stage."  No  wonder  the  astonished  critic  accused 
Reynolds  of  "pitching  it  too  strong."  2 

Let  us  return  for  a  moment  to  the  advertisements  of  an 
earlier  day,  those  of  the  T)aily  Courant  and  the  Spectator. 
It  is  curious  that  there  were  no  theatrical  advertisements 

—  at  least  no  paid  advertisements  —  in  the  Spectator  s 
forerunner,  the  Tatler.    In  the  third  number  (in  1709) 

1  Recollections,  I,  58-59.  2  njg  ^„^  Times,  II,  183-184. 


268         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

Steele  expressed  himself  as  not  "of  the  same  opinion  with 
my  friends  and  fellow-labourers,  the  Reformers  of  Man- 
ners, in  their  severity  towards  plays."   Instead,  he  con- 
sidered that  "a  good  play,  acted  before  a  well-bred 
audience,  must  raise  very  proper  incitements  to  good 
behaviour  and  be  the  most  quick  and  most  prevailing 
method  of  giving  young  people  a  turn  of  sense  and  breed- 
ing."   The  position  thus  taken,  Mr.  Bickerstaff  held 
consistently  and  generously.    Time  and  time  again  he 
summoned  "all  his  disciples,  whether  dead  or  living,  mad 
or    tame.    Toasts,    Smarts,    Dappers,    Pretty-Fellows, 
Musicians  or  Scrapers,  to  make  their  appearance  at  the 
Playhouse."  ^  He  particularly  befriended  Betterton  and 
Underbill,  Pinkethman,  Bullock,  and   Powell;   in  fact 
there  were  few  actors  who  did  not  profit  by  his  encomiums 
when  benefit  time  drew  near,  and  few  the  plays  and  play- 
wrights that  were  not  in  his  debt.    In  short,  it  must  be 
said  that  Steele,  in  his  own  hearty  way,  was  a  past  master 
of  the  noble  art  of  pufiing.    "The  puff  direct,  the  puff 
preliminary,  the  puff  collateral,  the  puff  collusive,  and  the 
puff  oblique  or  puff  by  implication,  .  .  .  the  Letter  to 
the  Editor,  Occasional  Anecdote,   Impartial  Critique, 
Observation    from    Correspondent,    or    Advertisement 
from  the  Party,"  —  not  an  item  or  method  in  Mr.  Puff's 
list  2  but  was  known  and  utilized  by  Mr.  Bickerstaff,  ex- 
cept only  the  last.   If  Steele's  praise  had  come  a  genera- 
tion or  two  later,  one  might  have  said  that  it  was  all  the 
more   effective   because   his   paper  contained  no  paid 
advertisements  from  the  managers.    Certainly  it  is  also 
true  that  mere  puffing  could  not  have  won  the  town  in  the 
long  run.   Steele  wrote  enthusiastically  about  the  theatre 
because  he  loved  it,  and  so  his  writings  carried  conviction. 
Cibber,  for  one,  gladly  admitted  his  indebtedness  long 
after  his  friendship  with  Steele  had  ceased.   There  was, 
he  writes,  "scarce  a  Comedian  of  Merit  in  our  whole  Com- 

»  Tatler,  No.  157.  *  The  Critic,  act  i. 


M  '^  K I )  \Yi  :s"!^  .^rau  t 


the  REXEJIT  of 

Mr,  Will.  RdiiaLcifgn 

CARPENTER. 


I  Royalty  Theatre 

GOODMANS  FIELDS, 

Wul  he  picfentid  .i  V»Ti(ty  of 

ENTERTAINMENTS, 

Uodcrthe  Direftion  of  Mr.  Dtlpini 
On  Thurfday  0£lobcr  12,  1797- 

GALLERY  cs.  ' 


THE  PLAYHOUSES  269 

pany  whom  his  Tatlers  had  not  made  better  by  his  publick 
Recommendation  of  them.  And  many  Days  had  our 
House  been  particularly  fill'd  by  the  Influence  and  Credit 
of  his  Pen."  ^ 

Though  no  attempt  was  made  to  pay  Steele  by  giving 
him  advertisements  for  the  Tatler^  he  did  not  go  unre- 
warded. As  Cibber  plainly  said  later,  when  he  faced 
Steele  in  the  courts,  it  was  the  "filling  our  Houses  by  the 
Force  and  Influence  of  his  Tatlers''  and  "Sir  Richard's 
assuring  us  they  should  be  continued"  that  won  him  his 
share  in  the  Drury  Lane  patent,  for  "  without  his  Promise 
to  use  that  Power,  he  would  never  have  been  ...  in- 
vited by  us  into  ...  a  Share  of  the  Profits."  ^  No  ad- 
vertising profits  could  have  equalled  the  £1000  a  year 
which  Steele's  share  brought  him  —  particularly  if  it  is 
true,  as  Lowe  asserted,  that  "in  Addison's  day  play- 
house advertisements  were  inserted  gratis,  probably  as  a 
matter  of  news."  ^  I  do  not  know  upon  what  evidence 
this  statement  is  based,  though  it  is  a  fact  —  as  Genest 
has  noted  ^  —  that  for  some  time  after  this  the  theatres 
publicly  announced  that  their  authorized  advertisements 
appeared  only  in  two  or  three  journals,  —  the  Spectator^ 
the  Couranty  the  Post^  and  later,  the  Public  Advertiser. 
On  the  other  hand,  it  is  worth  observing  that  an  ex- 
pense account  of  Covent  Garden  Theatre,  under  date  of 
September  12,  1735,  ^^^ts  among  other  charges  an  item  of 
loj.  dd.  for  "3  advertis^  for  Hamlet."  ^ 

If  the  papers  published  theatrical  advertisements 
gratis  in  the  early  days,  they  certainly  did  not  do  so  in  the 
second  half  of  the  eighteenth  century;  nor  did  the  journals 

^  Apology y  II,  162.  Cf.  dedication  of  Gibber's  Ximena  (1719);  Fitzgerald, 

I,  375- 

2  Apology,  II,  205;  see  above,  pp.  131-132. 

5  In  a  lecture  delivered  in  1894  before  the  Royal  Institution;  quoted  by 
H.  S.  Wyndham,  Annals  oj  Covent  Garden  Theatre,  I,  89. 

*  III,  66; V,  64. 

^  Printed  by  Wyndham,  I,  50. 


270         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

of  that  time,  if  we  may  accept  contemporary  opinion, 
report  theatrical  news  in  a  purely  disinterested  and  im- 
partial fashion.  In  1768,  in  the  course  of  the  long  dispute 
between  Colman  the  Elder  and  his  fellow  managers  of 
Covent  Garden,  he  accused  Harris,  one  of  their  number, 
of  "continually  running  to  all  the  news-printers  in  town 
with  his  own  scurrilous  letters  and  paragraphs,"  and  of 
having  "absolutely  opened  an  account  current  with  the 
publishers,  and  undertaken  to  pay  a  round  price  for  their 
suffering  their  papers  to  become  the  registers  of  his  false- 
hood, and  journals  of  his  malignity."  ^ 

Our  Stagers  buy  esteem, 

And  all  our  prints  with  their  perfections  teem, 

wrote  Samuel  Whyte,  the  Irish  schoolmaster,  not  long 
after;  ^  and  Doran  quotes  Horace  Walpole  on  the  subject 
against  none  other  than  the  Master  of  old  Drury,  Garrick 
himself.  The  things  written  in  Garrick's  praise  Walpole 
would  throw  altogether  out  of  court  "because  he  writes 
most  of  them  himself."  ^  Walpole  had  a  sharp  tongue 
and  must  not  be  taken  too  seriously,  but  it  is  curious,  at 
least,  that  the  charge  was  repeated  elsewhere.  A  letter 
of  the  time*  accuses  Garrick  of  owning  and  controlling 
the  policy  of  half  a  dozen  different  newspapers,  —  all  the 
papers  in  town,  in  fact,  except  two.  Hence,  we  read,  he 
had  "that  intire  freedom  from  censure  which  could  have 
been  obtained  in  no  other  way."  Part  of  this,  doubtless, 
is  envious  tittle-tattle.  At  any  rate,  we  cannot  pursue 
the  subject  further,  except  to  quote,  finally,  a  passage 
from  Woodward's  Prologue  on  the  Opening  of  Covent 
Garden  Theatre  m  1774,  which  suggests  that  in  that  year 
each  of  the  houses  had  its  favorite  newspaper  to  aid  it  in 

1  T.  Harris  Dissected,  1768,  p.  2. 

2  The  Theatre,  written  in  1779  (in  his  Collection  of  Poems  on  Various  Sub- 
jects, Dublin,  1792,  p.  3). 

3  Doran,  II,  76. 

*  Letter  to  David  Garrick,  Esq.,  London,  1772,  pp.  3  fF. 


THE  PLAYHOUSES  271 

its  advertising.  And  other  mediums  besides  the  papers 
come  in  for  mention.  Says  Woodward,  apostrophizing 
the  other  house: 

Shall  Alexander  to  a  stripling  yield? 

We'll  fight  on  crutches  ere  we'll  quit  the  field. 

Triumphant  cars  shall  roll,  and  minstrels  play; 

We  can  processionize  as  well  as  they. 

We'll  have  a  paper  too  at  our  command, 

And  Chronicle  'gainst  Farthing  Post  shall  stand. 

Ha!  Who's  afraid?     We'll  paragraph  and  pufF 

And  damn'd  be  he  who  first  cries,  hold!  enough!  ^ 

Since  this  was  the  spirit  which  prevailed  at  Covent  Gar- 
den, one  is  not  surprised  to  find  that  theatre's  advertising 
appropriation  running  into  the  hundreds  of  pounds  per 
season  before  many  more  years  had  gone  by.^ 

Playbills,  programmes,  tickets,  newspaper  notices  — 
all  these  were  important  in  the  theatrical  advertising  of 
old,  but  the  machinery  required  still  other  cogs  to  keep 
it  moving  smoothly.  For  one  thing,  managers  and  play- 
ers have  always  been  tempted  to  do  a  certain  amount  of 
underground  advertising.  Always  there  have  been  some 
—  perhaps  not  the  most  successful  —  who  have  sought 
to  win  their  public  by  letting  a  part  of  it  see  their  plays 
gratis.  Sometimes,  it  should  be  said,  such  privileges  were 
accorded  to  people  who  had  power,  and  were  to  be  hu- 
mored in  this  way  because  it  was  good  policy  to  put  them 
under  an  obligation.  It  was  provided  in  the  lease  of  The 
Theatre  estate  that  James  Burbage  should  allow  Giles 
Allen,  the  landlord,  and  that  gentleman's  wife  and  family, 
"to  se  .  .  .  playes  .  .  .  freely  without  any  thinge 
therefore  payeinge";  and  "a  boxe  for  the  Master  of  the 

1  This  prologue  appears  in  the  Harvard  Library  copy  of  The  Politician 
Rejorrnd,  London,  1774. 

2  According  to  a  MS.  note  in  the  British  Museum  Playbills,  Covent  Gar- 
den, 1793-1796,  "the  cost  of  advertisements"  for  the  season  1793-1794  is 
put  at  £291  loj.  6d.  By  1806  it  was  well  above  £400.  See  also  MS.  entry  on 
playbill  for  October  13,  1806. 


272         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

Revells  and  his  company,  gratis^''  was  an  admitted  per- 
quisite of  Sir  Henry  Herbert  at  the  later  playhouses. ^ 
Nor  is  it  at  all  difficult  to  comprehend  the  motives  which 
led  Henslowe  and  Cholmley  in  1587,  Sheridan  and  his 
partners  two  hundred  years  later,  and  probably  most  of 
the  managers  betwixt  and  between,  "to  suffer  their 
frends  to  go  in  for  nothinge."  ^  Naturally  enough,  also, 
the  playwrights  and  actors  availed  themselves  of  the 
franking  privilege.  "The  author,"  says  Sharkwell  in  the 
last  act  oi Bartholomew  Fair,  "must  come  in  gratis,  —  he 
is  a  voluntary,"  and  the  player  in  The  Hog  hath  lost  his 
Pearl ^  echoes  him:  "If  I  cannot  command  such  a  mat- 
ter," that  is,  to  give  a  box  at  a  new  play,  "  'twere  poor, 
faith!" 

The  free  list  grew  steadily  as  time  went  on,  and  allu- 
sions to  it  multiply  as  one  passes  from  Elizabethan  times 
to  the  Restoration.^  Before  long,  indeed,  the  thing  be- 
came a  decided  nuisance.  More  than  one  eighteenth- 
century  manager  went  on  the  theory  that  one  full  and 
friendly  house  would  bring  others,  and  that  some  of  the 
later  ones  would  pay  for  the  "paper"  lavished  on  the 
first. ^  Indeed,  we  are  told  that  they  sometimes  did  pay, 
and  the  fact  that  claqueurs  are  still  employed  in  Paris 
while  papered  houses  are  not  unknown  elsewhere,  sug- 
gests that  the  theory  still  has  its  devotees.  The  practice, 
however,  was  resented  from  the  very  start.  The  gen- 
erosity of  the  player  in  The  Hog  hath  lost  his  Pearl,  for 
instance,  might  possibly  have  brought  on  "a  mutiny" 
in  his  playhouse,  as  he  himself  suggests,  and  there  were 
other  occasions  when  the  expansion  of  the  free  list  met 

1  Wallace,  First  London  Theatre,  p,  178;  Malone,  III,  268. 

2  Henslowe  Papers,  p.  3;  Edwin's  Eccentricities,  II,  142. 
2  Collier's  Dodsley,  VI,  340. 

*  For  fuller  reference,  cf.  p.  264,  n.  5,  above. 

*  "I  suppose  one  shan't  be  able  to  get  in,  for  on  the  first  night  of  a  new 
piece  they  always  fill  the  house  with  orders  to  support  it"  (Sneer,  in  The 
Critic t  i,  i). 


,/f/A-' 


,  .'  >-^  / 


1         ■       - 
THEATKE  ROYAL 
In  DRU^r-LANE- 

The  Alchymift. 


■'tm 


«k\ 


THE  PLAYHOUSES  273 

with  strong  objection.  Colley  Cibber  attacks  Christopher 
Rich  sharply  for  opening  his  upper  gallery  gratis  to  the 
footmen  at  a  time  when  that  astute  manager  thought  the 
people  of  quality  were  unjustly  neglecting  him  in  favor 
of  the  rival  house.  Rich's  idea  was  to  incite  the  footmen 
**  to  come  all  Hands  aloft  in  the  Crack  of  our  Applauses," 
and  incidentally  to  "give  us  a  good  Word  in  the  respective 
Families  they  belong'd  to."  For  forty  years  after,  the 
footmen's  gallery  remained,  according  to  Cibber,  "the 
greatest  Plague  that  ever  Play-house  had  to  complain 
of."  1 

But  the  chances  are  that  he  and  his  fellow  managers  in 
their  turn  did  not  hesitate  to  use  the  free  list  when  it 
suited  their  convenience.  In  Spence's  Anecdotes  ^  we 
read,  on  Pope's  authority,  that  "an  audience  was  laid  for 
The  Distressed  Mother"  a  Drury  Lane  play  of  171 2  by 
Ambrose  Philips,  "and  when  they  found  it  would  do,  it 
was  practised  again,  yet  more  successfully,  for  CatoT 
Possibly  this  charge  deserves  no  more  weight  than  Cum- 
berland's assertion  that  She  Stoops  to  Conquer  was  saved 
at  the  first  performance  only  by  the  vigorous  efforts  of 
"a  phalanx  of  North-British  pre-determined  applauders, 
all  good  men  and  true."  ^  However  that  may  be,  —  pre- 
determined applauders  were  in  large  demand  in  the 
eighteenth  century.  The  reader  may  recall  how  Parson 
Sampson  led  his  cohorts  in  the  pit,  and  Gumbo  his  of  the 
gallery,  when  Mr.  George  Warrington's  tragedy  of  Car- 
pezan  was  produced  at  Covent  Garden.^  And  here  —  to 
prove  once  more  that  fact  may  be  as  curious  as  fiction — 
is  a  passage  from  Frederick  Reynolds,  concerning  the 
reception  accorded  his  tragedy  of  Eloisa.  It  was  first 
performed  in  1786  at  Covent  Garden,  and  there  "was 
met  with  thunders  of  applause;  not,  however,  owing  to 
either  its  merit,  or  its  fashion;  but  in  consequence  of  at 

1  Apology,  I,  233-234.  3  Memoirs,  I,  2,(>(>-;;i6^. 

^  P.  46.  *  The  Virginians,  Chapter  67. 


274         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

least  one  hundred  Westminster  boys  rushing  into  the 
boxes  and  pit,  determined,  '  blow  calm,  blow  rough,'  to 
support  the  production  of  a  brother  Westminster.  In 
addition  to  this  hearty  and  tumultuous  gang,  my  mother 
had  sent  our  head  clerk.  Crouch,  into  the  gallery,  with 
about  fifty  young  sprigs  of  the  law,  to  maintain  a  proper 
circulation  of  applause  through  all  parts  of  the  house." 
And  they  all  worked  so  hard  that  the  piece  received 
"every  possible  demonstration  of  admiration  and  en- 
thusiasm," No  wonder  the  manager  congratulated 
Reynolds  upon  having  more  real  friends  than  any  other 
man  in  London.^ 

In  this  particular  case,  of  course,  the  papering  was 
done  by  the  friends  and  relatives  of  the  author,  but  long 
before  this  the  managers'  own  sins  in  this  kind  had  been 
publicly  laughed  at.  Pope,  for  example,  in  Martinus 
Scriblerus^  had  modestly  proposed  that  "the  two  Houses 
of  Parliament,  my  Lords  the  Judges,  the  honourable  the 
Directors  of  the  Academy,  and  the  Court  of  Aldermen 
.  .  .  shall  have  their  places  frank,"  and  that,  in  accord- 
ance with  prearranged  signals  from  a  council  of  six  de- 
cayed poets  and  critics,  "the  whole  audience  shall  be 
required  to  clap  or  hiss,  that  the  town  may  learn 
certainly  when  or  how  far  they  ought  to  be  pleased."  ^ 

In  1756  Theophilus  Cibber  wrote  satirically  of  "  the  or- 
derly Clapper-men  and  hir'd  Puffers  of  Drury-Lane," 
declaring  that  "salaried  Clappers  deafen'd  the  Au- 
dience." ^  Twenty-five  years  later,  in  the  season  of  178 1- 
1782,  Charles  Lamb  saw  his  first  play.  "In  those  days," 
says  he,*  "there  were  pit  orders.  Beshrew  the  uncom- 
fortable manager  who  abolished  them !  With  one  of  these 
we  went."  The  order  was  presented  to  Lamb  by  his 
godfather,  an  oilman,  who  could  "command  an  order  for 

1  Lije  and  Times,  I,  321-322.        *  Elwin-Courthope,  X,  406-407. 

^  Dissertations,  II,  14,  15. 

*  Essays  oj  Elia,  "My  First  Play." 


THE  PLAYHOUSES  275 

the  then  Drury  Lane  Theatre  at  pleasure  —  and,  indeed, 
a  pretty  liberal  issue  of  those  cheap  billets,  in  Brinsley's 
easy  autograph,  I  have  heard  him  say  was  the  sole 
remuneration  which  he  had  received  for  many  years' 
nightly  illumination  of  the  orchestra  and  various  avenues 
of  that  theatre  —  and  he  was  content  it  should  be  so. 
The  honour  of  Sheridan's  familiarity  —  or  supposed 
familiarity  —  was  better  to  my  godfather  than  money." 
Later  on  Sheridan  made  an  attempt  to  cut  down  the 
number  of  orders,  —  particularly  the  unlimited  frank 
enjoyed  by  the  playwrights;  but  he  met  with  determined 
opposition.  On  being  informed  of  Sheridan's  move, 
Frederick  Reynolds  threatened  to  call  a  meeting  of  all 
the  dramatists  in  London  to  "take  into  immediate  con- 
sideration what  measures  should  be  adopted."  Sheridan 
gave  in.  Reynolds  was  free  once  more  to  write  all  the 
orders  he  liked,  and  he  tells  us  that  he  did  write  some 
fifteen  thousand  of  them  in  his  time!^  With  managers, 
authors,  and  players  all  doing  their  share  to  expand  the 
free  list  at  this  rate,  it  came,  in  time,  to  be  looked  upon 
as  a  danger  to  the  theatre.  Just  before  the  close  of  the 
century,, therefore,  the  actors'  "liberty  to  write  passes" 
was  restricted,  and  the  Lord  Chamberlain  sustained  the 
managers  of  Covent  Garden  when  the  players  com- 
plained in  1799.  But  the  habit  had  become  ingrained  and 
was  not  readily  shaken  off,  —  as  witness  the  fact  that  at 
this  very  theatre,  in  1824,  no  less  than  eleven  thousand 
passes  were  issued  in  less  than  three  months. ^  Obviously, 
this  sort  of  thing  must  have  been  one  cause  of  the  financial 
troubles  of  the  old  theatres,  and  yet  it  is  only  in  very 
recent  times  that  the  free  list  has  begun  to  fall  out  of 
favor  with  the  managers.  And  even  now  the  Positively 
No  Free  List  signs  which  one  sees  in  certain  box-ofiices, 
make  a  decided  call  upon  one's  will  to  believe. 

^  Life  and  Times,  I,  269;  II,  233-234. 

*  Statement  oj  the  Differences,  1800,  pp.  52  fF.;  Fitzgerald,  II,  425. 


276         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

We  have  seen  that,  for  reasons  of  policy,  the  free  list 
from  its  earliest  days  made  room  for  persons  whom  the 
managers  wished  to  propitiate.^  In  other  words,  they 
undertook  a  certain  amount  of  more  or  less  involuntary, 
or  at  least  not  strictly  commercial,  advertising.  This 
included,  from  the  earliest  times  to  the  present,  outlays 
for  charity.  Nothing,  to  be  sure,  could  be  more  unfair 
than  to  represent  as  mere  policy  or  cold  business  the 
warm-hearted  aid  the  people  of  the  theatre  have  always 
given  when  some  particular  distress  called  for  relief.  It  is 
all  the  more  interesting  to  note  that  the  earliest  contribu- 
tions to  charity  recorded  were  distinctly  forced  contribu- 
tions. The  London  ordinance  of  1574  represented  the 
"inordynate  hauntynge  of  greate  multitudes  of  people 
...  to  playes"  as  an  "unthriftye  waste  of  the  moneye 
of  the  poore  &  fond  persons,"  and  the  city  fathers  there- 
fore ordered  that  all  licensed  theatrical  companies  pay 
"  to  the  vse  of  the  poore  in  hospitalles  of  the  Cyttie,  or  of 
the  poor  of  the  Cyttie,  visyted  with  Sycknes,  suche 
sommes  ...  as  betwen  the  lord  Maior  and  Aldermen 
.  .  .  and  suche  persons  to  be  lycensed  .  .  .  shalbe 
agreed."  ^  "Tax-money  to  relieve  the  poor,"  was  ex- 
acted even  from  small  travelling  companies,  to  judge  from 
its  mention  in  the  old  pl^ij  Histrio-Mastix  {ca.  1599),^  and 
it  certainly  was  collected  in  London  for  many  a  long  year. 
Documents  discovered  by  Professor  Wallace  show  that 
^^from  161 1  to  1615,  and  again  in  1621,  the  Swan  Theatre 
/  paid  about  four  pounds  a  year  to  the  poor^^  and  I  find 
"from  allusions  ma  number  of  later  documents  that  the 
players'  poor-tax  was  a  long-lived  institution.  It  is  men- 
tioned in  A  Short  Treatise  against  Stage  Players  (1625), 
and  it  was  specifically  provided  for  in  the  Salisbury  Court 

1  On  passes  to  the  opera  issued  by  the  Lord  Chamberlain  see  Horace 
Walpole,  1791  (Letters,  ed.  Toynbee,  XIV,  396), 

2  Hazlitt,  pp.  27,  30. 
^  Act  vi. 

*  Englische  Studien,  XLIII,  390. 


THE  PLAYHOUSES  277 

settlement  of  1639,  ^^^  players  and  housekeepers  each 
agreeing  to  pay  half.  Again,  in  the  Middlesex  County 
Records  for  1659,  there  appears  a  complaint  of  certain 
citizens  against  a  company  of  players  who  had  hired  the 
Red  Bull  Theatre,  at  twenty  shillings  a  day  "over  and 
above  what  they  have  agreed  to  pay  towards  reliefe  of 
their  poore  and  repairing  their  highwaies."  And  so  late 
as  1726,  "Mr.  Herbert's  Company  of  Players"  were  al- 
lowed to  use  the  town  hall  at  Leicester  only  on  "Paying 
five  Pounds  to  Mr.  Mayor  for  the  use  of  the  Poor."  1  It 
is  a  curious  fact  that  in  the  Paris  of  to-day  a  tax  for  the 
benefit  of  the  poor  is  levied  on  all  but  the  cheapest  the- 
atre tickets,  —  but,  needless  to  say,  this  regulation  does 
not  go  back  to  the  Puritan  ordinances  of  old  England. 

Professor  Adams  -  has  called  attention  to  other  good 
deeds  of  the  Elizabethan  players.  Two  entries  in  Par- 
ton's  Hospital  and  Parish  of  St.  Giles  in  the  Fields  show 
that  in  1623  the  housekeepers  of  the  Cockpit  contributed 
the  substantial  sum  of  £19  is.  c^d.  toward  the  building 
fund  of  a  new  church  in  St.  Giles,  while  the  Lady  Eliza- 
beth's Men  (then  playing  at  the  Cockpit),  not  to  be  out- 
done in  generosity,  gave  £20  to  the  same  good  cause. 
Flagrant  levies,  these,  upon  his  Satanic  Majesty!  ^  Such 
contributions  were  not  exacted  by  the  statute  book,  and 
yet  they  commended  themselves  also  to  the  players  of 
later  times.  Colley  Cibber,  for  instance,  writes  that  in 
17 13  he  and  his  fellow  managers  gave  towards  the  repair 
of  St,  Mary's  Church  the  contribution  of  £5,  after  they 
had  finished  their  successful  visit  to  Oxford.^  Indeed,  the 
players  of  those  days,  no  less  than  their  successors,  made 
many  another  contribution  toward  similar  good  works. 

1  For  documents  see  Hazlitt,  p.  245;  Halliwell-Phillipps,  Illustrations, 
p.  86;  Middlesex  County  Records,  ed.  jeaffreson,  II,  235;  III,  270;  Kelly, 
Notices  of  Leicester,  p.  273;  Chalmers,  Apology,  pp.  404-405. 

2  Shakespearean  Playhouses,  p.  355;  Parton,  pp.  197,  234-235;  Murray, 
I,  252,  255,  259. 

2  See  above,  p.  47.  *  Apology,  II,  139. 


278         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

Wilks  arranged  for  a  benefit  towards  the  rebuilding  of 
the  old  Church  of  St.  Martin's-in-the-Fields,  and  many 
performances  were  given  from  year  to  year  for  the  benefit 
of  hospitals  and  other  charitable  institutions,^  for  the 
relief  of  many  and  various  poor  widows  and  orphans, 
victims  of  fire  and  famine,  poor  debtors  in  the  Marshal- 
sea,  and  even  for  Englishmen  held  in  slavery  on  the  Bar- 
bary  coast. ^  That  the  value  of  such  and  such  like  good 
deeds  in  terms  of  publicity  was  not  altogether  lost  sight 
of,  appears  from  the  large  amount  of  public  discussion  — 
some  of  it  none  too  amiable  —  which  ensued  in  1745 
when  Mrs.  Cibber  gave  three  performances  for  the  bene- 
fit of  the  so-called  "Veteran  Scheme,"  though  this  was 
really  a  plan  for  raising  soldiers  rather  than  a  charity.^ 

Far  greater  publicity  value,  however,  lay  in  two  other 
types  of  advertising  which  alone  remain  to  be  mentioned: 
first,  the  "featuring"  of  certain  "added  attractions"  —  a 
bait  which  has  always  lured  the  public,  and  always  will  — 
and  finally,  what  might  be  termed  the  personal  advertis- 
ing of  the  players.  The  former  is  and  was  so  obvious  a 
device  that  but  little  need  be  said  of  it.  In  1590  the  Earl 
of  Essex's  Men  went  on  tour  in  company  with  "the 
Turk,"  a  redoubtable  trickster  or  juggler  of  one  kind  or 
another,  and  not  even  the  King's  Men  scorned  such  reen- 
forcements,  for  they  brought  one  "hocus  pocus"  with 
them  when  they  came  to  play  at  Coventry  in  1638.*  Ben 
Jonson  objected  to  this  sort  of  thing:  "Do  they  think 
this  pen  can  juggle?"  inquires  Damn-Play  in  the  first 
scene  of  The  Magnetic  Lady  (1632):  "I  would  we  had 
Hokos-pokos   for    'em,    then,  ...  or   Travitanto   Tu- 

1  Genest,  IV,  2^6;  Victor,  I,  117;  Roach,  History  oj  the  Stage,  1796, 
p.  59. 

2  Genest,  IV,  299,  327;  VI,  607;  VII,  342;  Roach,  p.  93;  Doran,  II,  402; 
Samuel  Whyte,  Poems,  \'J<)1,  p.  53;  Lawrence,  II,  84. 

^  Genest,  IV,  190;  Fitzgerald,  Life  of  Mrs.  C/ive,  p.  40. 
*  See  Murray,  1,312-333;  II,  239,  253,  and  the  writer's  article  on  Travel- 
ling Players,  Modern  Philology,  XVII,  498-499. 


Vmi  i 


Tfh'  Iriir  f  .l!/.::\<  'I'fhr  I'rnr  /n,-li,in  Ki/uu  /dL/i  fivin  t/u-  Or/r7:';,i! 


THE  PLAYHOUSES  279 

desco!"  ^  But  later  times  retained  the  principle,  though 
they  varied  the  attraction.  The  managers  of  the  seven- 
teenth and  eighteenth  centuries  were  sometimes  content 
to  advertise  new  prologues  and  epilogues  to  serve  as 
special  attractions  with  old  plays/  or  perhaps  they  fea- 
tured the  return  —  for  one  performance  only!  —  of  Cave 
Underhill  or  Colley  Gibber  or  some  other  great  actor  long 
since  retired/  or  the  first  performance  —  on  any  stage!  — 
of  a  gentleman  amateur  like  John  Highmore/  But  some- 
times they  chose  stronger  bait.  In  April,  17 10,  for  in- 
stance, the  Haymarket  advertised  that  the  theatre 
would  be  honored  with  the  presence  of  "four  Indian 
Kings,"  who,  upon  the  insistence  of  the  spectators,  had 
to  be  placed  on  the  stage,  since  it  was  generally  agreed 
that  they  were  not  sufficiently  well  displayed  in  their 
box.^  Dr.  Doran  may  be  consulted  for  further  cases  in 
point,  and  he  who  will  may  read  how  a  leash  of  savages  or 
a  quack  doctoress  came  on  from  time  to  time  when 
royalty  or  high  nobility  was  not  there  to  draw  the  multi- 
tude.^ 

To  outward  appearances  we  have  grown  more  sophisti- 
cated and  fastidious,  but  the  showman  knows  that  we 
take  to  his  tricks  as  much  as  ever  our  ancestors  did  before 
us.  The  simple  fact  of  the  matter  is  that  no  element  of 
that  complex  whole  which  we  call  the  theatre  is  more 
conservative,  more  true  to  its  ancient  and  honorable 
traditions,  than  the  audience.  Perhaps  we  do  prefer  to 
have  our  added  attractions  on  the  stage  rather  than 
among  the  spectators;  yet  who  would  deny  that  the  royal 
box  —  at  the  Opera,  say  —  remains  an  object  of  delight- 
ful interest  to  London  playgoers?  And  what  American 
manager  does  not  welcome  a  visit  from  the  President  — 
or  the  members  of  a  winning  football  team  ?    But  when 

^  See  also  The  Staple  oj  News,  ii,  i,  ad  fin. 

2  Genest,  III,  82.  *  See  above,  p.  193.  ^  I,  371-372. 

3  Id.,  II,  468.  5  Genest,  II,  450-452. 


28o         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

all  is  said  and  done,  the  greatest  added  attraction  of  the 
theatre  nowadays  is  the  press  agent.  His  facts  and 
fancies  satisfy  an  ancient  human  want:  the  desire  to  know 
how  the  heroes  of  the  boards  live  and  move  and  have  their 
being  when  they  are  merely  treading  the  earth  like  or- 
dinary mortals.  To  satisfy  that  desire  may  be  to  vul- 
garize the  theatre,  but  it  is  also  to  humanize  it,  and  so  it 
is  perhaps  the  best  of  all  advertising. 

Still,  in  one  sense  not  even  the  press  agent  is  really  a 
new  institution.  It  may  be  said,  rather,  that  in  the 
course  of  time  his  work  has  become  more  specialized  than 
of  yore,  and  that  a  generation  of  trained  experts  has 
grown  up.  For  some  of  the  work  of  the  press  agent  of  to- 
day was  done  —  and  effectively  done  —  in  the  days  of 
old;  and  the  playwrights  and  players  themselves  were  the 
men  who  did  it.  It  was  so  in  Shakspere's  time,  though 
nobody  seems  to  have  noticed  the  fact.  Ben  Jonson,  for 
one,  capitalized  for  advertising  purposes  the  personal 
popularity  of  the  great  actors  at  the  Globe,  the  Black- 
friars,  and  the  Hope.  To  Burbage  and  Field,  "your  best 
actors,"  he  gave  a  place  of  honor  in  Bartholomew  Fair^ 
and  he  remembered  "Master  Burbage  and  Master  Hem- 
ings"  in  his  Masque  of  Christmas.  Other  playwrights  did 
as  much.  Burbage,  Condell,  Sly,  Sinkler,  and  Lowin,  for 
example,  occupy  the  stage  in  propriis  personis  in  the  In- 
duction to  The  Malcontent'^  Kemp  and  Burbage  are  given 
much  space  in  the  university  play.  The  Return  from  Par- 
nassus \  2  and  Greene's  Tu  ^oque  pays  due  honors  to 
Thomas  Greene  of  the  Red  Bull,^  whose  portrait  adorns 
the  title-page.  Kemp  is  personally  featured  once  more  in 
Day's  Travaiks  of  the  Three  English  BrotherSy^  while 
Joseph  Taylor  receives  honorable  mention  in  The  Par- 

'  V,  3. 

^  Ed.  Macray,  pp.  139  flF.   See  p.  241,  above. 

2  Collier's  Dodsley,  VII,  i. 

*  JVorks,  ed.  Bullen,  II,  55. 


THE  PLAYHOUSES  281 

S017S  Wedding,  an  early  but  not  very  elegant  play  of 
Killigrew's.^ 

The  actors,  for  their  part,  did  not  shrink  from  the  pub- 
lic gaze.  Such  plays  as  A  Knack  to  Know  a  Knave,  with 
Kemp's  Applauded  Merriments,  Shanks' s  Ordinary,  and 
Singer  s  Voluntary,"^  served  by  their  very  names  to  adver- 
tise the  men  who  wrote  them  and  acted  in  them.  William 
Kemp,  moreover,  must  have  known  before  he  started  on 
his  famous  Nine  Days'  Morris  from  London  to  Norwich, 
that  the  public  would  be  decidedly  interested  in  his  ex- 
ploit. He  and  Tarlton  were  quite  willing  to  lend  their 
names  to  the  pamphlets  ^  which  celebrated  their  adven- 
tures and  kept  their  memory  green. 

One  way  in  which  this  desirable  consummation  was 
achieved  in  later  times,  I  have  already  mentioned,  —  the 
vigorous  paper  war  by  which  Mrs.  Cibber  and  Mrs.  Clive 
brought  their  grievances  before  the  world.*  And  we  have 
seen  that  this  pleasant  way  of  telling  the  town  of  all  the 
woes  of  the  players,  long  remained  in  favor.  Nor  were 
there  wanting  other  ways  and  means  of  scoring,  some  of 
them  not  unknown  to-day.  In  Dr.  Johnson's  time,  for 
instance,  all  the  gallant  gentlemen  were  entranced  with 
the  vivacious  Anne  Catley,  and  all  the  fine  ladies  imi- 
tated her  coiffure.  Mrs.  Abington's  caps,  again,  were  so 
much  the  rage  in  1760  that  there  was  no  milliner's  shop 
too  poor  to  have  a  supply  of  them,  and  ABINGTON  ap- 
peared in  large  letters  to  attract  the  passers-by.^  But 
the  very  best  personal  advertising  mediums  of  the  players 
in  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries  were  the  pro- 

1  V,  I. 

2  Henslowes  Diary,  I,  173;  II,  156;  Malone,  III,  221. 
'  Kemp's  Nine  Daies  JVonder  (1600);  Tarlton  s  Jests. 

*  See  above,  p.  118.  "I'm  resolv'd  I'll  Advertise  against  her,"  says  the 
Woman  Player  in  the  opening  scene  of  Fielding's  Pasquin  (1736).  "I'll  let 
the  Town  know  how  I  am  injured."  The  person  she  proposes  to  advertise 
against  is  Mrs.  Merit,  who  is  to  "have  all  our  principal  Parts  now." 

^  Genest,  X,  436. 


282         SHAKSPERE  TO  SHERIDAN 

logues  and  epilogues.  In  them  they  dropped  their  royal 
robes  and  the  high  iambic  style,  to  disport  themselves  at 
will:  to  delight  the  town  with  gossip  about  themselves 
and  to  laugh  at  the  bubble  reputation.  It  was  in  this 
spirit  that  the  immortal  Nell  Gwynn  rose  from  the  dead 
—  Dryden  had  killed  her  off  in  the  character  of  Valeria, 
at  the  close  of  his  Tyrannic  Love  (1669)  —  and  pounced 
upon  the  startled  bearer  of  her  supposed  remains,  — 

Hold,  are  you  mad?  you  damn'd  confounded  dog, 
I  am  to  rise,  and  speak  the  Epilogue! 

And  in  that  spirit  she  continued: 

I  come,  kind  gentlemen,  strange  news  to  tell  ye, 
I  am  the  ghost  of  poor  departed  Nelly. 
Sweet  ladies,  be  not  frighted,  I'll  be  civil: 
I'm  what  I  was,  a  little  harmless  devil. 


To  tell  you  true,  I  walk  because  I  die 
Out  of  my  calling  in  a  Tragedy.  — 
O  poet,  damn'd  dull  poet,  who  could  prove 
So  senseless  to  make  Nelly  die  for  Love! 
Nay,  what's  yet  worse,  to  kill  me  in  the  prime 
Of  Easter-Term,  in  Tart  and  Cheesecake-time! 
I'll  fit  the  fop,  for  I'll  not  one  word  say 
T'  excuse  his  godly,  out-of-fashion  play. 

As  for  my  Epitaph,  when  I  am  gone 

I'll  trust  no  poet,  but  will  write  my  own: 
Here  Nelly  lies,  who,  though  she  Iked  a  slattern 
Yet  died  a  Princess,  acting  in  S.  Catharn. 

In  the  same  rollicking  humor,  Mountford  and  the  match- 
less Bracegirdle  came  on  to  do  the  Prologue  of  D'Urfey's 
Marriage-Hater  Matched  (1692).  The  lady  pretends  to  be 
dreadfully  embarrassed  because  she  is  dressed  in  boy's 
clothes.   Mountford  urges  her  to  be  brave: 

Nay,  Madam,  there's  no  turning  back  alone; 
Now  you  are  Enter'd,  faith  you  must  go  on 
And  speak  the  Prologue,  you  for  those  are  Fam'd 
And  th'  Play's  beginning  .  .  . 


THE  PLAYHOUSES  283 

She  takes  comfort,  finally,  in  the  reflection  that  neither 
"Men  nor  their  Garbs  did  e'er  my  Credit  wrong,"  and 
her  colleague  agrees  that  her  "Modesty  is  Fam'd. — 
Come  now,  the  Prologue."  Then,  with  a  "Lord,  I'm  so 
asham'd!"  she  carries  it  off  and  says  her  say  for  the 
author  and  the  comedy: 

For  to  speak  Truth  in  its  incouragement, 
There  is  a  Plot,  and  some  good  Humour  in  't. 

Other  plays  provided  similar  opportunities:  for  the 
inimitable  Jo  Hayns,  for  example,  one  of  the  very  best 
prologue-speakers  of  them  all;  ^  for  Cave  Underbill,  and 
Tony  Lee,  and  Nokes,^  and  many  another.  From  Bur- 
bage  and  Field  and  Nell  Gwynn  down  to  Fawcett  in 
Frederick  Reynolds's  comedy  of  Management  (I'jgg)^^ 
your  best  actors  spoke  for  themselves  as  well  as  for  the 
characters  they  portrayed.  Our  best  actors  to-day  (and 
some  others)  have  their  press  agents  to  speak  for  them, 
and  all  who  desire  it  are  privileged  to  enjoy  more  privacy 
than  those  who  came  before  them.  For  the  moment  the 
exploiting  of  the  personal  equation  is  most  in  order  among 
low  comedians  and  "movie  stars."  But  the  theatre  is  the 
theatre  still,  and  no  artist  or  personality  connected  with 
it  but  stands  or  falls  ultimately  by  what  the  audience 
sees  in  the  fierce  white  light  which  beats  upon  the  stage. 

1  See  Banks's  Prologue  to  The  Rival  Kings  (1677)  and  D'Urfey's  Pro- 
logue to  Lacy's  Sir  Hercules  Buffoon  (1682). 

2  See  the  Prologue  of  D'Urfey's  Virtuous  Wife  (1680). 

^  In  the  epilogue  (written  by  George  Colman  the  Younger)  Fawcett,  who 
played  Mist,  the  country  manager,  remarks  coyly: 
Author's  and  Actors'  merit  were  immense 
And  Fawcett  e'en  surpassed  his  usual  excellence. 


Appendices 


Appendix  I 


Extracts  from  the  Lord  Chamberlain's  Books, 
1661-1683,  Concerning  Allowances  to  Players 
and  Managers,  and  the  Regulation  of  the  Stage^ 

I.  Warrants  for  liveries. 

I.   "A  Warrant  to  the  Master  of  the  Create  Wardrobe  to 
provide  and  deliver  unto  His  Ma'**  Players  whose  names 
li  f^j     1    f      1      follow  (viz)  Nicholas  Burt  Charles  Hart 
Uoaksjorthe    Mi^h^el  Mohun  Robert  Shatterell  John 
Lomedtans         -^acy  William  Wintershall  Walter  Clunn 
William  Cartwright  Edward  Shatterell  Edward  Kynnaston 
Richard  Baxter  Thomas  Loveday  Thomas  Betterton  and 
Marmaduke  Watson  to  each  of  them  foure  yards  of  Bastard 
Scarlett  for  a  Cloake  and  to  each  of  them  a  quarter  of  a  yard 
of  Crimson  velvett  for  the  cape  of  itt  being  the  usuall  Allow- 
ance of  every  Second  yeare  to  comence  at  October  last  past 
And  this  shall  be  yo'  Warrant  Given  &c  this  29th  day  of 
July  1661."  L.  C.  7/1,  f.  2. 

1.   "A  Warrt.  to  ye  great  Wardrobe  to  provide  &  deliver 
vnto  Charles  Hart  Michael  Mohune  Jo:  Lacey  Theophilus 
«,  jrr.  ,  Bird    Nicholas    Birt    Robert    Shatterell 

Liver  e7'^^^    Walter     Clunn     Will:    Wintersell    Will: 
■^  Cartwright  Edw.  Kinnaston  Nich.  Blag- 

don  Marmaduke  Watson  —  Hancock  Richard  Baxter  Ed- 
ward Shatterel  &  Thomas  Gradwell  his  Ma*'"'  Actors  or 
Comoedians  to  each  of  them  foure  yards  of  Bastard  Scarlitt 
for  a  cloake  &  to  each  of  them  a  quarter  of  a  yard  of  Crymson 
Velvett  for  a  Cape  for  their  Liverye  for  the  yeare  1666  it  be- 
ing allowed  them  every  second  yeare.  And  so  Dated  "  Febru- 
ary 25,  1665. 

^  These  MS.  books  are  in  the  Public  Record  Office,  London.   The  refer- 
ence notation  of  that  office  is  given  with  each  extract. 

287 


288  APPENDIX  I 

tt^         ,      ,         J      "The  Like  Warrt.  in  everey  respect  for 
■^    ^ .      P  yf         her    Ma"*^    Comoedians    being    Sixteene 
-^  in  Number."  February  25,  1665. 

L.  C.  5/138,  f.  65. 

3.  "A  Warrant  to  provide  and  deliuer  to  Mrs.  Wiaver  Mrs. 
Marshall  Mrs.  Rutter  Mrs.  Yates  Mrs.  Nipp^  Mrs.  Dalton 
Ellen  Gwyn  Alice  Hall  Francis  Dauenport  and  Anne  Child 
Women  Comoedians  in  his  Ma''*^  Theatre  Royal  vnto  each 
of  them  foure  yards  of  bastard  scarlet  cloath  and  one  quarter 
of  a  yard  of  velvett  for  their  liueryes  for  this  present  yeare 
1666."     June  30,  1666.  L.  C.  5/138,  f.  71. 

'J   ,j     j  "A  Warrt.  to  provide  &  deliver  to  Mrs.  Marshall  Mrs. 

r"^  i         Rutter  Mrs.  Nojd^  Ellen  Gwyn  Francis  Elizabeth  &  Jane 

/  Davenport    Weomon    Comoedians    in    his    Ma''*'   Theater 

/  Royall  vnto  each  of  them  four  yards  of  Bastard  Scarlett  & 

one  quarter  of  a  yard  of  Crymson  Velvett  for  their  Liverys 

for  ye  yeare  1668,  it  being  allowed  vnto  them  every  second 

yeare  to  comence  from  ye  30th  of  May  1666."  July  22,  1667. 

L.  C.  5/138,  f.  271. 

4.  "A  Warrant  to  deliver  to  Mr.  Killegrew  thirty  yards  of 

n  r  •        r         ^        >>Q     velvett  three  dozen  of  fringe  and  six- 
Liveryforye  fester   ^     ^  a      ct\         ir^u 

-'•^     -^    -'  teene  yards  or  Uamaske  tor  the  yeare 

1661  allowed  every  second  yeare."     July  12,  1661. 

L.  C.  7/1,  f.  2. 

"These  are  to  signifie  .  .  .  that  you  provide  &  deliver 
.  .  .  vnto  Thomas  Killigrew,  Esq.  Master  of  his  Ma*'*' 
Comoedians  or  Actors  Eight  yards  of  Bastard  Scarlett  &  halfe 
a  yard  of  velvett  for  his  Livery  for  the  yeares  1660:  1662  & 
1664  &  Is  being  allowed  vnto  him  every  second  year.  .  .  . 
Dated  this  6th  of  June  1665."  L.  C.  5/138,  f.  55. 

"A  warrant  to  ye  Great  Wardrobe  to  provide  &  deliver 
to  Thomas  Killigrew  Esq.  Masf  of  his  Ma''*'  Comoedians 
&  Actors  Eight  yards  of  Bastard  Scarlet  &  half  a  yard  of 

*  A  mistake  for  the  Duke's  players? 

2  Mrs.  Knepp,  Pepys's  friend. 

^  Many  of  Killigrew's  contemporaries  refer  to  the  fact  that  he  served  as 
the  king's  jester.  The  following  warrants  indicate  that  he  had  a  separate  al- 
lowance for  livery  as  "master  of  the  comedians." 


APPENDIX  I  289 

vevett  for  his  Livery  for  ye  year  1666.  And  also  that  you 
deliver  to  ye  said  Mr.  Killigrew  these  percells  following  (viz) 
thirty  yards  of  velvett  &  three  Dozen  of  fringe  &  sixte  one 
yards  of  Damask  for  Curtains  And  so  Dated"  February  25, 
1665.  L.  C.  5/138,  f.  65. 

"Warrant  to  deliver  to  Mr  Tho:  Killigrew  Thirty  yards 
of  Velvett  3  dozen  of  fringe  &  sixty-one  of  Damaske  and  so 
dated"  July  27,  1667.  L.  C.  5/138,  f.  272. 

11.   Warrants  for  supplies  and  payment  for  court 
performances. 

1.  "A  Warrant  to  the  Master  of  the  Great  Wardrobe  to  pro- 
vide and  deliver  to  Thomas  Killigrew  Esq.  to  the  value  of 
forty  pounds  in  silkes  for  to  cloath  the  Musick  for  the  play 
called  the  Indian  Queene  to  be  acted  before  their  M''^' " 
January  25,  1663-4.  L.  C.  5/138,  f.  15. 

2.  "A  Warrant  to  make  vp  Habbits  of  severall  coloured 
silkes  for  foure  and  Twenty  violins  twelve  of  them  being  for 
his  M''^^  service  in  the  Theatre  Royall  and  the  other  twelve 
Habitts  for  his  M''®^  service  in  his  Highnesse  the  Duke  of 
Yorkes  Theatre,  and  also  foure  and  Twenty  Garlands  of 
severall  coloured  flowers  to  each  of  them  after  the  same 
manner  as  those  that  were  delivered  to  S"'  H.  Herbert.  All 
those  Habitts  and  Garlands  to  bee  delivered  to  Mr.  Killi- 
grew for  his  M''®^  extraordinary  service."  March  20,  1664-5. 

L.  C.  5/138,  f.  45. 

3.  Two  days  earlier  an  order  had  been  issued  for  twenty- 
four  "Habitts  of  severall  coloured  rich  taffatas  for  fower 
and  twenty  violins  like  Indian  gowns  .  .  .  after  the  fashion 
as  S'  Henry  Herbert  Master  of  his  M'"«'  Revells  shall  in- 
forme  you  and  to  be  delivered  to  S''  Henry  Herbert  for  his 
]y[ties  extraordinary  service."  L.  C.  5/138^  f.  45. 

4.  "Warrant  to  pay  vnto  Thomas  Killigrew  the  sum  of  One 
Thousand  &  fifty  pounds  for  plays  acted  before  their  Ma*'^' 
by  his  Ma''®"  Comoedians  at  Court  and  at  the  Theater  from 
the  third  of  March  1662  to  ye  twentieth  of  November  1666." 

L.  C.  5/138,  f.  275. 


290  APPENDIX  I 

III.  "Warrants  of  Severall  Sorts." 

1.  "Allowances  ^  for  the 
^^  Allowance  J  or  ye  Comoedians  Comoedians   those 

at  ye  Cockpitt''  tymes  they  Act  at  ye 

Cockpitt  in  St.  James  Parke: 

Charcole  8  Bushell      White  &  Cheate  Bread  25  Loves 

Sack  3  Gallons      Clarett  3  Gallons 

Beere  8  Gallons      Torches  24 

Sizes  3  Busches  [?] 

Tallow  Candles  6  pounds  Twelve  white  dishes." 

L.  C.  5/138,  f.  433. 

2.  "These  are  to  signifie  vnto  you  his  Ma*'"  pleasure  that 
you    provide    and    deliver  .  .  .  these    particulars    for    his 

4,  ^  .      .      Ma*'*'  Comedians  vpon   ye  Night   they 

_,        ,.    •',,     Act  at  Court  (viz)  Twelve  quarts  of  Sack, 

•^  twelve  quarts  of  Clarett  four  &  twenty 

Torches.  .  .  .  Eight  Gallons  of  Beer  foure  basketts  of  Cole 
Six  dishes  of  Meal  twelve  loaues  of  Whitebread  &  twelve 
loaues  of  Brown  bread  foure  pounds  of  Tallow  Candles 
twelve  white  Dishes  to  Drincke  in  &  two  Bombards  to  fetch 
beere  And  so  dated  31  October  1666."     L.  C.  5/138,  f.  2,(>^. 

IV.  Papers  concerning  Killigrew  and  the  manage- 
ment of  the  King's  Men. 

1.  On  January  11,  1 674-1 675,  the  company  was  ordered  to 
appear  before  the  Lord  Chamberlain  at  the  request  of  Killi- 
grew, who  had  complained  that  its  members  had  "violently 
taken  and  shared  money,"  contrary  to  their  agreement. 

L.  C.  7/1,  f.  4. 

2.  On  September  9,  1676,  the  Lord  Chamberlain  states  that 
"during  the  difference  betweene  Mr.  Killegrew  and  his 
Sonne"  he  himself  will  take  over  the  government  of  the  com- 
pany. He  appoints  Mohun,  Hart,  Kynaston,  and  Cartwright 
"under  me"  in  "distributing  of  parts,  ordering  of  playes  to 
bee  acted  and  all  other  things  thereunto  belonging." 

L.  C.  7/1,  f.  6. 

^  This  warrant  is  not  dated,  but  it  appears  in  the  book  for  the  years  1663- 
1667. 


APPENDIX  I  291 

3.  The  following  order  is  dated  February  22,  1 676-1 677,  and 
signed  by  Arlington,  the  Lord  Chamberlain: 

"By  a  second  order  I  did  appoint  Mr.  Hart  alone  to  over- 
see and  direct  all  things.  .  .  .  Now  whereas  the  Father  and 
the  Sonne  are  agreed  and  that  the  Father  .  .  .  hath  resigned 
...  all  his  right  .  .  .  and  authority  unto  his  sonne  Mr. 
Charles  Killegrew  I  do  therefore  according  to  His  Ma*'*' 
pleasure  hereby  order  that  the  said  Company  do  in  all  things 
conforme  themselves  to  the  orders  ...  of  Mr.  Charles 
Killegrew  as  they  did  unto  ...  his  Father."         L.  C.  7/1,  f.  7. 

4.  The  preceding  order  did  not  settle  matters.  Players  and 
manager  continued  to  squabble,  and  it  appears  that  for  a 
time  Drury  Lane  was  closed  by  order  of  the  authorities. 
On  July  30,  1677,  the  Lord  Chamberlain  wrote  to  the  At- 
torney General,  instructing  him  to  lift  the  suspension.  For 
the  moment  the  king  was  willing  to  let  the  players  try  to 
manage  themselves: 

"His  Ma'*  being  dissatisfied  with  the  Government  of 
His  Servants  at  the  Royall  Theatre,  upon  their  humble  peti- 
tion ...  is  pleased  to  gratify  them  in  there  proposition  of 
governing  themselves  but  withall,  that  Mr.  Killigrew's  right 
to  his  shares  and  proffitts  may  be  preserved  and  that  he  may 
have  all  security  to  indemnify  him  from  those  Articles  and 
debts  which  he  alledges  he  is  lyable  unto.  ...  It  is  his 
Ma*'"  desires  it  may  be  dispatcht  by  you  with  all  con- 
veniency  that  the  company  may  begin  to  play  to  support 
themselves  because  they  suffer  every  day  they  lye  still." 

L.  C.7/i,f.3. 

5.  The  old  difficulties  continued.  On  October  30,  1679  ^^^ 
Lord  Chamberlain  wrote  to  Charles  Killigrew  that  the  king 
had  heard  serious  complaints  against  him,  —  that  Killi- 
grew was  about  to  dispose  of  the  players'  "stock  of  Clothes, 
Bookes,  and  other  properties"  illegally.  Killigrew  is  ordered 
to  stop  this  procedure.  Further,  he  is  to  take  an  inventory 
and  give  it  to  Major  Mohun  for  the  rest  of  the  company.^ 

L.  C.  7/1,  f.  8. 

1  All  this  dissention  within  the  ranks  had  its  inevitable  effect.  The  King's 
company  grew  weaker  and  weaker,  and  with  the  union  of  the  companies  in 
1682  it  was  absorbed  by  its  rival  (the  Duke's).   See  above,  pp.  no,  123. 


292  APPENDIX  I 

V.    Miscellaneous  orders  for  the  government  of 
players  and  playhouses. 

1.  "It  is  his  Ma'^'  pleasure  according  to  a  clause  in  his 
Ma*'®*  Letters  patent  for  erecting  the  two  Companies  .  .  . 
that  no  person  whatsoever  that  are  hired  or  anywaies  enter- 
tained by  any  Bargaine  or  Agreement  .  .  .  either  in  his 
]y[^tiea  Theatre  or  His  Royal  Highnesses  Theatre  shall  de- 
part from  either  the  said  Theatre  without  giving  three 
Moneths  warning.  And  that  neither  of  the  said  Theatres  do 
.  .  .  hire  any  person  that  hath  beene  soe  entertained  .  .  . 
unlesse  the  person  do  first  shew  a  Certificate  under  the  hands 
and  seals  of  such  as  are  appointed  by  that  Company  to  give 
the  same  .  .  .  and  this  order  is  to  take  effect  from  the  date 
hereof.    Given  .  .  .  this  i6th  day  of  May  1674. 

"The  like  for  the  Dukes  Theater."  L.  C.  7/1,  f.  3. 

2.  On  November  4,  1675,  1°  Hayns  ^  was  suspended  by  the 
Lord  Chamberlain  because  he  had  "with  ill  and  scandalous 
Language  and  violent  Carriage  abused  Sir  Thomas  Wind- 
ham, his  Ma*'®'  Knight  marshall  and  his  Lady." 

L.  C.7/i,f.  5. 

3.  On  January  18,  1686-7,  ^he  Lord  Chamberlain  issued  an 
order  prohibiting  outsiders  from  "coming  betweene  the 
Scenes  at  the  Royall  Theatre  during  the  time  of  Acting,"  and 
commanding  "that  in  no  case  whatsoever  any  person  do 
presume  to  sitt  upon  the  stage  or  stand  there  during  the 
time  of  actinge."  ^  L.  C.  7/1,  f.  6. 

4.  On  November  29,  1686,  the  Lord  Chamberlain  ordered  a 
hearing  on  a  complaint  brought  before  him  by  Mrs.  Lacy, 
widow  of  the  actor  and  playwright.  Mrs.  Lacy  charged  that 
the  United  Company  had  consistently  withheld  payment  of 
"the  three  shillings  four  pence  by  the  day  which  her  late 
husband  purchased  for  two  hundred  pounds."    After  the 

^  For  other  exploits  of  this  player  see  above,  p.  no. 

^  Other  orders  of  this  sort  were  issued  from  time  to  time  but  without  ef- 
fect, until  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century  (Calendar  of  State  Papers, 
Domestic,  1664-1665,  p.  218;  i666-i66j,  p.  502;  i66j-i668,  p.  394;  Lowe, 
Betterton,  pp.  40-41;  Fitzgerald,  II,  435-436). 


APPENDIX  I  293 

hearing  his  Lordship  decided  that  the  2s.  4^.  must  be  paid 
regularly,  but  the  arrears  were  dropped.  This  case  indicates 
that  the  United  Company  supplied  itself  with  capital  by 
exactly  the  same  method  as  that  used  by  the  Red  Bull  Com- 
pany in  161 5;  namely,  by  selling  annuities  payable  out  of 
daily  receipts.^  L.  C.  7/1,  f.  14. 

VI.  Letters  and  orders  concerning  the  King's  Men 
in  the  provinces.- 

I.  On  May  15,  1680,  the  Lord  Chamberlain,  then  at  Windsor 
Castle,  wrote  as  follows  to  the  Reverend  Dr.  Timothy 
Haughton,  Vice  Chancellor  of  Oxford  University: 

"His  Ma"*'  Comoedians  having  obteyned  His  leave  to 
go  and  aire  themselves  in  the  Country  now  wee  have  no 
need  of  their  Attendance  at  Court  and  beleiving  no  aire 
better  than  that  of  Oxford,  having  likewise  prevailed  with 
His  Ma*'®  to  comand  mee  to  recomend  them  to  yo"'  pro- 
tection. That  they  may  represent  some  of  their  good 
Playes,  for  some  convenient  time  before  the  universitie: 

1  do  heartily  do  it,  assuring  my  selfe,  that  for  the  Character 

and    Priviledge    they    have   of   being   his    Ma*'®'  sworne 

Servants,  and  for  being  men  of  letters,  you  will  be  pleased 

to  afford  them  all  the  favour  that  shall  bee  necessary 

towards  their  security  whilst  they  are  there,  which  they 

promise  they  shall  not  abuse  in  any  degree.    I  am  with 

much  truth  ^t  jo 

Reverend  b'' 

Yo''  most  affectionate  and  humble 

Servant  ^  ,.  ,, 

Arlington. 

On  June  5,  the  Lord  Chamberlain  once  more  addressed 
Dr.  Haughton  (again  from  Windsor  Castle)  as  follows:  — 
"I  wrote  to  you  on  May  the  15th  recommending  to  yo' 
favour  and  protection  His  Ma*''  Comoedians,  who  have- 

^  See  the  writer's  article  on  T/ie  Elizabethan  Dramatic  Companies,  Publica- 
tions oj  the  Modern  Language  Association^  XXVIII,  129. 

2  I  have  discussed  this  subject  at  length  in  an  article  on  Strolling  Players 
and  Provincial  Drama  after  Shakspere,  forthcoming  in  the  Publications  of 
the  Modem  Language  Association. 


294 


APPENDIX  I 


ing  since  complained  to  him  that  there  is  another  Com- 
pany of  the  same  profession,  whose  admittance  in  the 
University  will  frustrate  them  of  the  proffitt  they  prom- 
ised themselves  under  His  Ma*'*'  name  His  Ma'"*  hath 
comanded  mee  to  lett  you  know  His  pleasure  that  Hee 
would  have  His  owne  Comoedians  onely  gratified  with 
this  favour  they  needing  such  an  Extraordinary  Encour- 
agement to  repaire  them  for  some  misfortune  lately  be- 
fallen them,  and  perswadeing  himselfe  they  can  singly 
afford  the  university  as  much  divertisement  as  theire 
vacancie  from  their  studies  will  admitt  off  I  am 

S' 
Y""  most  Affectionate  humble 

Servant  Arlington  .^^^ 

L.  C.  7/1,  f.  9. 

1.  In  spite  of  their  character  and  privilege  as  men  of  letters 
and  servants  to  the  king,  the  royal  actors  sometimes  found 
themselves  stranded  on  the  road,  —  or  perilously  near  that 
unpleasant  predicament.  In  1683  the  Lord  Chamberlain 
settled  a  dispute  concerning  a  loan  of  ** Twenty  pounds  .  .  . 
for  defraying  theire  charges  in  comeing  out  of  Scotland  .  .  . 
towards  the  bringing  of  them  back  to  act  in  His  Ma*'*' 
Theatre  at  London."  L.  C.  7/1,  f.  10. 

^  On  the  players  at  Oxford  in  Restoration  times,  see  above,  pp.  226,  175- 
176,  and  cf.  Life  and  Times  oj  Anthony  Wood,  ed.  A.  Clark,  I,  405-406. 


Appendix  II 


Rates  of  Admission  in  the  Elizabethan  Theatre  i 

I.  Rates  and  Conditions  in  General 

Penny  admissions,  the  lowest  charged  in  our  period,^  are 
mentioned  in  many  documents  besides  those  quoted  in  the 
text.  In  Martins  Months  Minde  (1589),  one  of  the  Anti- 
Marprelate  tracts,  we  hear  of  "  the  Plaiers,  ,  .  .  whom  .  .  . 
sauing  their  liueries  (for  indeede  they  are  hir  Maiesties  men 
.  .  .)  they  call  Rogues,  for  playing  their  enterludes,  and  Asses 
for  trauelling  all  dale  for  a  pennie."  ^  Captain  Tucca  of 
Jonson's  Poetaster'^  also  damns  the  "honest  pennybiter" 
with  decidedly  faint  praise,  and  Jonson  returns  to  the  charge 
elsewhere.^  Dekker,^  Fletcher,'  and  Samuel  Rowlands  ^ 
also  allude  to  penny  admissions. 

Allusions  to  twopenny  admissions  (i.e.,  to  the  twopenny 
"rooms"  or  galleries)  are  even  more  frequent.  Captain  Tucca, 
Jonson's  as  well  as  Dekker's,  again  has  his  say  in  the  matter, 
the   former   addressing   Histrio    as   "you    two-penny    tear- 

'  See  above,  pp.  222  fF.  In  the  following  notes,  passages  cited  by  Malone 
and  Collier  are  credited  to  them. 

^  For  earlier  halfpenny  rates,  see  below,  p.  304. 

^  Grosart's  Nashe,  I,  166.  ■•  iii,  i  ad  fin.  (Malone). 

'  "Tut,  give  me  the  penny,  give  me  the  penny;  I  care  not  for  the  gentle- 
men, I:  let  me  have  a  good  ground,  —  no  matter  for  the  pen,  the  plot  shall 
carry  it."     The  Case  Is  Altered,  i,  i. 

®  "Your  Groundling,  and  Gallery  Commoner  buyes  his  sport  by  the 
pennie."  The  Gull's  Horn  Book,  chap.  6,  p.  28  (Malone  and  Collier).  "A 
Gentleman  or  an  honest  Cittizen  shall  not  sit  in  your  pennie-bench  Theaters, 
with  his  Squirrell  by  his  side  cracking  nuttes  .  .  .  but  he  shall  be  Satyr'd." 
Satiromastix,  1601,  ed.  Scherer,  lines  1669  ff.  (Collier). 

^  "  Break  in  at  plays,  like  prentices,  for  three  a  groat  and  crack  nuts  with 
scholars  in  penny  rooms  again."  Wit  without  Money,  printed  1639,  iv,  5 
(Malone). 

*  Rowlands  addresses  the  poets  as  follows  {The  Letting  of  Humours  Blood 
in  the  Head-Vaine,  1600,  p.  5,  Works,  Hunterian  Club,  I): 
Will  you  stand  spending  your  Inventions  treasure 
To  teach  Stage  parrels  speakc  for  pennie  pleasure? 

295 


296 


APPENDIX  II 


mouth"  and  "my  good  two-penny  rascal"^  while  in  Dek- 
ker's  play  the  Captain  bids  farewell  to  the  audience  thus: 
"He  see  you  all  heere  for  your  two  pence  a  peice  again.  .  .  . 
Good  night,  my  two  pennie  Tenants,  God  night."  ^  Dekker 
returns  to  the  "two-pennie  gallerie"  in  half  a  dozen  addi- 
tional allusions,^  all  testifying  to  the  well-known  fact  that  the 
penny  groundlings  and  twopenny-gallery  patrons  had  among 
them  not  a  few  lewd  fellows  of  the  baser  sort.  Middleton,* 
Fletcher,^  and  other  writers  ^  speak  of  these  patrons  of  the 
drama  in  much  the  same  way. 

^  Poetaster,  ii,  i.   Cf.  the  prologue  to  Every  Man  Out  of  his  Humour:  "Let 
me  .  .  .  never  live  to  look  as  high  as  the  two-penny  room  again." 
^  Epilogue,  Satiromastix  (Collier). 

^  Malone  and  Collier  gathered  some  but  not  all  of  these.  They  do  not 
note  the  first  three  in  the  following  list: 

Worke  jor  Armorours  (1609):  "In  .  .  .  Tearme  times,  when  the  Two- 
peny  Clients,  and  Penny  Stinkards  swarme  together  to  heere  the 
Stagerites."   Grosart's  Dekker,  IV,  96. 

lests  to  Make  You  Merie  (1607):  "A  Wench  ...  of  bad  conditions, 
sitting  one  day  in  the  two-penny  roome  of  a  play-house."  II,  292. 

Rauens  Almanacke  (1609):  "Players,  by  reason  they  shall  haue  a  hard 
winter,  and  must  trauell  on  the  hoofe,  will  lye  sucking  there  for  pence 
and  two-pences."  IV,  196.  And  again  (IV,  184):  "The  most  per- 
spicuous place  of  the  two-penny  gallerie  in  a  play-house"  and  (IV, 
194)  "Hee  shall  be  glad  to  play  three  houres  for  two  pence"  (For  a 
further  allusion  of  this  sort  in  Middleton's  and  Dekker's  Roaring  Girl, 
see  material  below  on  prices  at  the  Fortune,  p.  305). 

Newes  from  Hell  (1606):  "Euerie  market  day  you  may  take  him  in 
Cheape-side,  poorely  attired  like  an  Ingrosser,  and  in  the  afternoones, 
in  the  two-peny  roomes  of  a  Play-house,  .  •  .  seated  Cheeke  by 
lowle  with  a  Punke."   II,  96. 

The  Dead  Terme  (1608):  "Common  luglers,  Fidlers,  and  Players,  doe 
not  more  basely  prostitute  themselves  to  the  pleasures  of  euery  two- 
pennie  drunken  Plebeian,  than"  etc.   IV,  55. 

Lanthorne  and  Candle-Light  (1609):  "Pay  thy  two-pence  to  a  Player,  in 
his  gallerie  maist  thou  sitte  by  a  Harlot."   Ill,  216. 

Seuen  Deadly  Sinnes  of  London  (1606):  "Sit  in  the  two-pennie  galleries 
.  .  .  amongst  the  Gentlemen."   II,  53. 

*  In  Middleton's  Mayor  of  ^ueenborough  (acted  ca.  1622),  v,  i:  Simon, 
the  country  mayor,  says:  "O  the  clowns  that  I  have  seen  in  my  time!  The 
very  peeping  out  of  one  of  them  would  have  made  a  young  heir  laugh,  though 
his  father  lay  a-dying;  a  man  undone  in  law  the  day  before  .  .  .  might  for 
his  twopence  have  burst  himself  with  laughing"  (Bullen,  II,  94). 

^  See  below,  p.  309  (prices  at  St.  Paul's). 

*  In  the  translator's  preface  to  Tomasso  Garzoni's  Hospitall  of  Incurable 


APPENDIX  II  297 

Both  threepence  and  fourpence  were  charged  at  some  play- 
houses, though  the  allusions  to  these  prices  are  so  few,  com- 
paratively speaking,  that  most  writers  have  assumed  that 
sixpence  was  the  charge  for  those  who  did  not  care  to  sit 
in  the  twopenny  gallery.  But  we  have  seen  that  the  three- 
penny and  fourpenny  patrons  are  duly  remembered  in  the 
Actors'  Remonstrance y  and  by  Prynne  in  Histrio-Mastix}  We 
shall  hear  of  them  again  in  connection  with  the  rates  at  the 
Theatre  and  St.  Paul's.^ 

Sixpence  is  the  next  step  in  the  scale.  We  found  Jonson 
inviting  his  audience  to  judge  their  six-pen'worth  in  Bartholo- 
mew Fair^  and  he  politely  returns  elsewhere  to  "the  faeces 
or  grounds  of  your  people  that  sit  in  the  oblique  caves  and 
wedges  of  your  house,  your  sinful  six-penny  mechanics,"  * 

The  wise  and  many-headed  bench  that  sits 
Upon  the  life  and  death  of  plays  and  wits  .  .  . 
Composed  of  gamester,  captain,  knight,  knight's  man.  .  . 
With  the  shop's  foreman  or  some  such  brave  spark 
That  may  judge  for  his  sixpence.^ 

The  "  six-penny-roomes  are  mentioned  also  in  the  Actors' 
Remonstrance^^  and  all  these  allusions  suggest  that  sixpenny 
admission  at  the  private  theatres,  and  at  first  performances 
at  the  public  theatres,  was  paid  by  a  type  of  patron  resem- 
bling those  who  paid  a  penny  or  twopence  at  the  public 
theatres  on  ordinary  occasions. 

The  higher-priced  seats  ranged  from  a  shilling  to  half-a- 
crown.  Shilling  places  are  mentioned  frequently,  and  opinions 
differ  as  to  their  place  in  the  general  scale  of  prices.  Malone,^ 
chiefly  on  the  basis  of  a  citation  from  Sir  Thomas  Overbury's 
Characters   (1614),  —  "If  he  have  but  twelve    pence  in  his 

Fooles  (1600),  appears  what  Daniel  Hipwell,  who  communicated  the  passage 
to  Notes  and  Queries  (8th  Ser.,  I,  41 2)  terms  a  probably  "  almost  unique  refer- 
ence" of  this  sort:  "I  beg  it  with  as  forced  a  looke,  as  a  Player  that  in  speak- 
ing an  Epilogue  makes  loue  to  the  two-pennie  roume  for  a  plaudite." 

^  See  above,  pp.  219,  224.      ^  See  above,  p.  223. 

2  See  below,  pp.  303,  309.      ^  Induction  to  The  Magnetic  Lady  (Malone). 

^  Jonson's  prefatory  verses  to  Fletcher's  Faithful  Shepherdess  (Malone). 

*  "We  shall  for  the  future  promise  never  to  admit  into  our  six-penny- 
roomes  those  unwholesome  inticing  Harlots  that  sit  there  meerely  to  be  taken 
up  by  Prentizes  or  Lawyers  Clerks."  Hazlitt,  English  Drama  and  Stage,  p. 
265.  ^  III,  74-75. 


298  APPENDIX  II 

purse,  he  will  give  it  for  the  best  room  in  a  playhouse,"  — 
argues  that  a  shilling  was  "  the  price  of  admission  into  the 
best  rooms  or  boxes"  in  Shakspere's  time.  Collier^  agrees 
that  the  passage  "seems  decisive,"  but  fails  to  note  in  this 
connection  that  prices  at  the  Hope,  an  inferior  theatre, 
ranged  up  to  half-a-crown  on  at  least  one  occasion  in  1614. 
The  point  is  that  a  shilling  was  not  the  upper  limit  at  first 
performances,  when  prices  were  doubled.'^  In  our  discussion 
of  prices  at  the  Globe  ^  we  shall  notice  the  allusion  to  shilling 
hearers  in  the  Prologue  to  Henry  VIII.  Malone  thought 
that  this  passage  supported  his  view,  but  Collier  rightly  saw 
that  it  proves  only  that  there  were  shilling  places,  not  that 
they  were  the  best  in  the  house.  Archer  and  Lawrence  *  refer 
to  the  same  passage  in  support  of  the  view  that  a  shilling  was 
"doubtless  an  average  price"  for  all  the  playhouses  of 
Shakspere's  time,  but  the  evidence  as  to  the  capacity  of  the 
Elizabethan  houses  and  their  daily  takings  indicates  that  the 
average  playgoer  paid  decidedly  less  than  a  shilling.^  However 
that  may  be,  the  shilling  places  are  mentioned  also  by  Dekker,® 
Webster,^  Fletcher,^  Taylor  the  Water  Poet,'  and  others.^" 

1  III,  152.  ^  See  above,  pp.  229  fF. 

'  See  below,  pp.  303-304.  The  passage  from  Henry  FIJI  runs  as  follows: 
Those  that  come  to  see 

Only  a  show  or  two,  and  so  agree 

The  play  may  pass,  if  they  be  still  and  willing, 

I'll  undertake  may  see  away  their  shilling 

Richly  in  two  short  hours. 

^  Shakespeare's  England,  II,  307.         ^  See  Appendix  III,  p.  312,  below. 
*  See  the  familiar  passage  in  The  Gull's  Horn  Book:  "At  a  new  play  you 
take  vp  the  twelve-penny  roome  next  the  stage,  (because  the  Lordes  and 
you  may  seeme  to  be  haile  fellow  well  met)."   Procemium,  ed.  1609,  p.  2. 

^  See  his  Induction  to  Marston's  Malcontent  (1604):  "I  say,  any  man  that 
hath  wit  may  censure,  if  he  sit  in  the  twelve  penny  room  "  (BuUen,  I,  202). 
'In  the  Prologue  to  The  Mad  Lover: 

Remember  ye're  all  venturers,  and  in  this  Play 

How  many  twelve-pences  ye  have  stow'd  this  day; 

Remember,  for  return  of  your  delight, 

We  launch  and  plough  through  storms  of  fear  and  spight. 

'  See  The  Travels  0/  Twelve-Pence,  Taylor's  Works,  1630,  p.  70.    In  its 
travels  Twelve-Pence  goes  to  all  sorts  of  people,  among  them  "  to  players, 
Bearewards,  Fencers,  to  goodfellowes." 
1"  Malone  quotes  from  the  commendatory  verses  to  Massinger's  Bondman: 
Reader,  if  you  have  disburs'd  a  shilling 
To  see  this  worthy  Story  .  .  . 


APPENDIX  II  299 

"The  better  and  braver  sort,"  ^  who  paid  eighteenpence 
or  two  shillings  for  admission,  could  hardly  have  been  so 
numerous  —  in  the  public  playhouses  at  least  —  as  one 
might  be  led  to  infer  from  the  not  inconsiderable  number  of 
allusions  to  these  prices.  We  have  already  met  with  two 
such  allusions  in  Prynne  and  Bartholomew  Fair.  Collier,  in 
noting  another  in  The  Scornful  Lady, ^  remarks  that  "Fletcher 
makes  the  elder  Loveless  speak  of  'eighteen-pence,'  as  if  that 
were  the  highest  price  of  admission  at  the  Blackfriars," 
where  this  piece  was  given  before  161 6.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
all  that  old  Loveless  says  is:  "I  can  now  feast  myself  with 
my  two  shillings  and  can  see  a  play  for  eighteen  pence  again." 
We  shall  see,  when  we  consider  the  prices  at  the  Blackfriars 
and  the  other  private  houses,  that  Collier  was  wrong.  Let 
it  be  observed,  meanwhile,  that  Damn-Play,  of  The  Magnetic 
Lady^  saw  "no  reason,  if  I  come  here,  and  give  my  eighteen 
pence  or  two  shillings  for  my  seat,  but  I  should  take  it  out 
in  censure."  And  yet  there  is  every  reason  to  believe  that 
the  fine  gentlemen  occupying  these  seats  and  the  half-crown 
boxes  were  more  conspicuous  in  their  bearing  than  for  their 
numbers.  As  for  the  half-crown  gallants,  we  have  previously 
met  them  in  Bartholomew  Fair,  and  we  shall  find  them  paying 
tribute  at  the  Cockpit.*  It  will  be  sufficient  to  add  that  Sir 
Humphrey  Mildmay  of  Danbury  ^  paid  is.  6d.  on  April  26, 
1 63 1,  when  he  went  to  see   The  Spanish  Bawde,  and  that 

^  See  Jonson's  Induction  to  The  Magnetic  Lady. 

*  iv,  I  (Collier,  III,  152).  Collier  quotes  also  the  Prologue  to  Cockain's 
Obstinate  Lady  (printed  1657): 

If  perfum'd  Wantons  do  for  eighteen  pence. 
Expect  an  Angel,  and  alone  go  hence; 
We  shall  be  glad  — 
and  from  Sir  John  Suckling's  (d.  1642)  Epistle: 
The  sweat  of  learned  Johnsons  brain, 
And  gentle  Shakespeare's  eas'er  strain, 
A  hackney-coach  conveys  to  you. 
In  spite  of  all  that  rain  can  do: 
And  for  your  eighteen  pence  you  sit 
The  Lord  and  Judge  of  all  fresh  wit. 

{Fragmenta  Aurea,  Poems,  ed.  1646,  p.  35.) 

'  ii,  1.  *  See  below,  p.  310. 

*  Collier  (I,  463)  quotes  (correctly)  from  Sir  Humphrey's  journal,  Har- 
leian  MS.  454,  fols.  20  S. 


300 


APPENDIX  II 


half-crown  admissions  are  mentioned  also  in  T.  Gainsford's 
Rich  Cabinet  Furnished  with  Varietie  of  Excellent  Descrip- 
tions (i6i6).^ 

It  is  doubtful  whether  even  half-a-crown  would  buy  our 
gallant  the  right  to  the  sole  use  of  a  private  box,  and  we 
know  that  he  had  to  pay  an  extra  charge  for  the  stool  he 
occupied  upon  the  stage  of  the  private,  and  sometimes  the 
public,  theatres.^  Dekker  advises  his  Gull  not  to  appear 
upon  the  stage  until  the  play  is  about  to  begin;  then  he  is 
to  come  forth  with  his  "tripos  or  three-footed  stool"  in  one 
hand  and  his  sixpence  in  the  other.^    Sixpenny  stools  are 

1  "Take  him  to  a  play  .  .  .  hee  shall  laugh  as  hartily,  obserue  as  iu- 
diciously,  and  repeat  as  exactly  for  nothing,  as  another  man  shall  for  his  halfe- 
crowne."   Hazlitt,  p.  xi. 

See  also  News  from  the  Stage  (1668?): 

You  visit  our  Plays  and  merit  the  Stocks 
By  paying  Half-crowns  of  Brass  to  our  Box. 

Wood  Collection,  vol.  416,  broadside  No.  117. 

2  Malone's  citations  (III,  77-78)  from  The  Malcontent  and  The  Roaring 
G/r/ prove  that  this  custom  was  at  times  satirized  by  the  players  at  the  public 
theatres.  Thus  Sly,  in  the  Induction  to  The  Malcontent,  answers  the  tire- 
man's  request  that  he  remove  himself  from  the  stage  (of  the  Globe,  where  this 
piece  was  given  in  1604)  by  remarking,  "Why,  we  may  sit  upon  the  stage  at 
the  private  house";  and  in  The  Roaring  Girl  the  stage  gallants  are  described 
as  "the  private  stage's  audience"  (ii,  i;  BuUen,  IV,  37).  On  the  other  hand. 
Collier  (III,  157)  called  attention  to  the  fact  that  Dekker  advises  his  Gull  to 
sit  on  the  stage  even  though  he  attend  a  public  theatre:  "Whether  therefore 
the  gatherers  of  the  publique  or  priuate  Play-house  stand  to  receiue  the 
afternoones  rent  let  our  Gallant  (having  paid  it)  presently  aduance  himselfe  vp 
to  the  Throne  of  the  Stage,"  where  he  is  to  sit  "  on  the  very  Rushes  where  the 
Commedy  is  to  daunce"  {Gull's  Horn  Book,  Chap.  6,  p.  28).  Collier  also 
quotes  a  passage  from  Henry  Hutton's  Folly's  Anatomic  (1619)  in  which  a 
gallant  is  urged  to  grace  the  stage  of  the  Globe  with  his  presence: 

The  Globe  to  morow  acts  a  pleasant  play, 

In  hearing  it  consume  the  irkesome  day. 

Goe  take  a  pipe  of  To.;  the  crowded  stage 

Must  needs  be  graced  with  you  and  your  page. 

Sweare  for  a  place  with  each  controlling  foole, 

And  send  your  hackney  servant  for  a  stoole. 
See  E.  F,  Rimbault's  edition,  pp.  17-18,  Percy  Society,  1842,  VI. 

^  "Present  not  your  selfe  on  the  Stage  .  .  .  until  the  quaking  prologue 
...  is  ready  to  give  the  trumpets  their  Cue  that  hees  vpon  point  to  enter: 
for  then  it  is  time,  .  .  .  to  creepe  from  behind  the  Arras,  with  your  tripos  or 
three-footed  stoole  in  one  hand,  and  a  teston  mounted  betweene  a  forefinger 
and  a  thumbe  in  the  other:  for  if  you  should  bestow  your  person  vpon  the 


APPENDIX  II  301 

mentioned  again  in  the  inductions  to  The  Malcontent  ^  and 
Cynthia  s  Revels,^  while  a  passage  in  Dekker  and  Middleton's 
Roaring  Girl^  indicates  that  at  times  as  much  as  a  shilling 
was  charged.  Malone*  conjectured  that  the  price  of  stools 
varied  "according  to  the  commodiousness  of  the  situation," 
Collier  that  the  shilling  purchased  for  the  gallant  the  addi- 
tional privilege  of  being  attended  by  his  page;  but  the  chances 
are  that  the  managers  simply  charged  what  they  could  get. 
A  minor  point  which  I  have  not  si  zn  noted  in  this  connec- 
tion is  that  these  stools,  and  perhaps  other  good  seats  in  the 
house,  were  sometimes  supplied  with  cushions.^  The  sale 
of  stage  seals  was  prohibited  by  royal  order  before  1639,®  t)ut 

vulgar,  when  the  belly  of  the  house  is  but  halfe  full,  your  apparell  is  quite 
eaten  vp,  the  fashion  lost."   Chap.  6,  p.  30. 

'  "By  God's  lid  .  .  ,  I  would  have  given  you  but  sixpence  for  your  stool" 
(Malone  and  Collier). 

2  "A  stool,  boy!"  "Ay  sir,  if  you'll  give  me  sixpence  I'll  fetch  you  one." 
See  also  Bartholomew  Fair,  v,  3.  "Have  you  none  of  your  pretty  impudent 
boys  now,  to  bring  stools,  fill  tobacco,  fetch  ale,  and  beg  money,  as  they  have 
at  other  houses?"  Collier  quotes  Thomas  Randolph's  Cornelianum  Dolium 
(i,5,ed.  i638,p.24): 

I  can  for  six  pence  have  a  Page 
Get  me  a  stool  upon  the  stage. 

Another  allusion  of  this  sort  appears  in  Henry  Parrot's  Springes  for  Wood- 
cocks (1613): 

When  young  Rogero  goes  to  see  a  play, 

His  pleasure  is,  you  place  him  on  the  stage, 

The  better  to  demonstrate  his  array 

And  how  he  sits  attended  by  his  page  (Malone). 
'  "The  private  stage's  audience,  the  twelvepenny-stool  gentlemen."  H,  i, 
154  (Malone  and  Collier).  The  stools  are  mentioned  also  in  the  Prologue  to 
Shirley's  Example  (licensed  1634): 

Some  ili-look'd  stage-keepers,  like  lictors,  wait 
With  pipes  for  fasces,  while  another  bears 
Three  footed  stools  instead  of  ivory  chairs  (GifFord,  III,  282). 
*  Malone,  III,  77;  Collier,  III,  155-156. 

^  See  the  description  of  the  London  theatres  by  Thomas  Platter,  the  Swiss 
who  visited  London  in  1599:  "If  he  desires  to  sit  in  the  most  pleasant  place  of 
all,  upon  cushions,  .  .  .  then  he  pays  one  penny  English  additional  at  an- 
other door"  {Anglia,  XXII,  458).  Cf.  the  rather  equivocal  passage  in  the 
Induction  to  The  Malcontent:  "Gentlemen,  I  could  wish  .  .  .  you  had  all 
soft  cushions  "  (Bullen,  I,  206). 

^  In  that  year  the  actor-sharers  at  the  Salisbury  Court  agreed  to  allow  the 
housekeepers  "  one  dayesproffitt  wholly  to  themselues"  in  lieuof  "their  want 


302  APPENDIX   II 

the  gallants  came  back  to  the  stage  in  full  force  after  the 
Restoration. 

We  have  seen  that  there  were  no  reserved  seats  in  Eliza- 
bethan times. ^  Consequently,  gentlemen  sometimes  returned 
home  disgusted,  having  been  either  unable  to  gain  admission, 
or  else  forced  to  take  their  chances  and  stand  up  with  the 
groundlings.  Thus  Sir  Humphrey  Mildmay  noted  in  his 
journaP  that  he  "came  home  dirty  and  weary,  the  play 
being  full."  They  could  avoid  this  predicament,  however, 
by  hiring  a  private  box,  which  they  could  have  locked,  and 
the  key  delivered  to  them.^  It  may  be,  as  I  have  said,  that 
half-a-crown  was  paid  for  this  privilege,  but  it  is  possible 
that  more  was  charged. 

II.  Rates  of  Admission  at  Specific  Theatres 

Turning  from  this  general  survey  of  theatrical  prices,  we 
may  next  observe  to  what  extent  the  materials  can  be  as- 
signed specifically  to  the  various  playhouses,  and  hence,  to 
what  extent  prices  and  conditions  agreed  or  differed  from 
house  to  house.  I  shall  assume  that  an  allusion  to  rates  of 
admission  in  a  play  known  to  have  been  given  at  a  certain 
theatre,  may  be  regarded  as  good  evidence  as  to  prices  at 
that  theatre.  Testimony  of  some  sort  is  available  for  four- 
teen of  the  playhouses.    Let  us  take  the  public  theatres  first. 

of  stooles  on  the  stage,  which  were  taken  away  by  his  Majesties  comand" 
(Halliwell-Phillipps,  Illustrations,  p.  86).  Miss  Gildersleeve  does  not  mention 
this  fact  in  her  Government  Regulation  of  the  Elizabethan  Theater,  nor  have  I 
seen  any  other  notice  of  it. 
^  See  above,  pp.  263  ff. 

*  See  above,  p.  299,  n.  5. 

*  In  one  of  the  Strafford  Letters  (1739,  I,  511)  reference  is  made  to  "a 
little  Pique"  which  "happened  betwixt  the  Duke  of  Lenox  and  the  Lord 
Chamberlain  about  a  Box  at  a  new  Play  in  the  Black  Fryars,  of  which  the 
Duke  had  got  the  Key."  This  was  in  1635  (Malone  and  Collier).  See  also, 
once  more,  the  Induction  to  The  Malcontent:  "Good  Sir,  will  you  leave  the 
stage?  He  helpe  you  to  a  private  roome"  (Bullen,  I,  206).  Dekker,  in  the 
Belman  oj  London,  1608  (Grosart,  III,  80),  mentions  a  "priuate  gallery." 
Provision  for  boxes  is  made  in  the  building  contracts  for  the  Hope  and  For- 
tune {Henslowe  Papers,  pp.  20,  6).  On  the  location  of  the  private  boxes,  cf. 
Lawrence,  Situation  oj the  Lords'  Room  {Elizabethan  Playhouse,  I,  29  fF.). 


APPENDIX  II  303 

I,  1.  The  Theatre  and  the  Curtain 

Lambarde  in  his  Perambulation  of  Kent  (1596),'  states  that 
"such  as  goe  to  Parisgardein,  the  Bell  Sauage,  or  Theatre, 
to  beholde  Beare  baiting,  Enterludes,  or  Fence  play,"  can- 
not "account  of  any  pleasant  spectacle,  vnlesse  they  first 
pay  one  pennie  at  the  gate,  another  at  the  entrie  of  the  Scaf- 
folde,  and  the  thirde  for  a  quiet  standing."  Again,  John 
Lyly  in  Pappe  with  an  Hatchet  (1589),^  informs  us  that,  if 
a  play  in  which  Martin  Marprelate  is  to  have  a  part  "  be 
shewed  at  Paules,  it  will  cost  you  foure  pence;  at  the  Theater 
two  pence."  Finally,  in  Martins  Months  Minde  (1589),  the 
dying  Martin  is  made  to  say  that  the  common  people  are 
"now  wearie  of  our  state  mirth,^  that  for  a  penie  may  haue 
farre  better  by  oddes  at  the  Theater  and  Curtaine  and  any 
blind  playing  house  euerie  day."  *  Disregarding  St.  Paul's 
for  the  moment,  we  note  that  the  prices  at  The  Theatre  and 
the  Curtain,  according  to  these  early  documents,  ranged 
from  a  penny  to  threepence.  There  is  no  discrepancy  here, 
as  Collier  ^  suggests.  Undoubtedly  the  two  playhouses  had 
not  only  admissions  at  a  penny,  twopence,  and  threepence, 
but  also  higher  priced  places  —  later,  at  any  rate.  It  would 
be  expecting  too  much  to  look  for  an  entire  scale  of  prices  in 
every  passing  allusion. 

3.  The  Globe 

When  Captain  Tucca  in  Satiromastix  bemoans  the  fact 
that  a  gentleman  cannot  peaceably  "sit  in  your  pennie- 
bench  Theaters,  with  his  Squirrell  by  his  side  cracking  nuttes 
.  .  .  but  he  shall  be  Satyr'd,"  ^  one  need  not  go  beyond  the 
Globe  to  place  the  allusion,  since  this  purge  was  administered 
to  Jonson  at  the  Globe  in  1601.  I  can  find  no  specific  allusion 
to  the  twopenny  galleries  at  the  Globe,  but  we  shall  see  that 
those  of  the  Fortune  are  frequently  mentioned,   and   the 

1  P.  233. 

2  Bond's  Ly/y,  III,  408. 

'  I.  e.j  the  attacks  and  counter-attacks  in  the  Marprelate  Controversy. 

*  Grosart's  Nashe,  I,  179. 

6    III,  150. 

*  Ed.  Scherer,  lines  1669  flF. 


304  APPENDIX  II 

Fortune  was  built  on  the  model  of  the  Globe.^  For  the  rest, 
we  have  already  had  occasion  to  note  the  familiar  passages 
in  the  Induction  to  The  Malcontent  and  the  Prologue  to 
Henry  VIII ^  which  describe  the  spectators  as  "seeing  away 
their  shilling"  at  the  Globe  in  1604  and  1613,  respectively. 
On  May  16,  1633,  Sir  Humphrey  Mildmay  appropriated  two 
shillings  "to  a  play  ...  at  the  Globe,"  and  on  June  8  of 
the  same  year,  he  spent  eighteenpence  to  see  another  play 
there.^    Probably  these  were  new  plays. 

4.   The  Bear  Garden 

Ordish  ^  quotes  from  Robert  Crowley's  Epigrams  the  fol- 
lowing passage  indicating  the  prices  charged  for  the  bear- 
baiting  at  Paris  Garden  in  1550,  —  forty-four  years  before 
Henslowe  and  Alleyn  took  over  the  patent  and  the  house 
and  began  to  use  it  for  plays  as  well: 

At  Paryse  garden,  eche  Sundaye  a  man  shall  not  fayle 
To  fynde  two  or  thre  hundredes,  for  the  bearwardes  vaile. 
One  halfpenye  a  piece  they  vse  for  to  giue. 
When  some  haue  no  more  in  their  purse,  I  belieue.^ 

The  Lambarde  passage  quoted  above  ®  indicates  that  in 
1596  prices  at  the  Bear  Garden  were  about  the  same  as 
those  at  The  Theatre,  at  least  so  far  as  the  rates  from  a  penny 
to  threepence  are  concerned.  In  the  play  of  Thomas  Lord 
Cromwell  (1602)  one  of  the  characters  offers  to  "go  you  to 
Parish-garden  for  two  pence."  ^ 

5.  The  Hope 

The  important  passage  in  the  Induction  to  Bartholomew 
Fair  which  establishes  the  scale  of  prices  at  the  opening 
performance  of  that  play  at  the  Hope  in  16 14,  has  already 
been  noticed.^    Probably  these  were  the  "extraordinary" 

'  For  the  building  contract  of  the  Fortune,  see  Henslowe  Papers,  pp.  4  ff. 
^  See  above,  p.  298,  notes  3  and  7. 

'  Collier,  I,  48a.  *  Early  London  Theatres,  p.  132. 

5  Select  Works  oj  Robert  Crowley,  E.  E.  T.  S.,  1872,  p.  17. 
»  See  p.  303. 

'  ii,  2  (Tucker  Brooke,  Shakespeare  Apocrypha,  p.  172). 
*  See  p.  223.  Other  passages  in  this  play  (v,  i  and  3)  indicate  that  at  the 
puppet  shows  "gentlefolks"  paid  twopence. 


APPENDIX  II  305 

prices  charged  at  the  first  performance.  Taylor  the  Water 
Poet  thus  describes  the  prices  which  prevailed  at  the  Hope 
in  the  same  year  on  the  occasion  of  the  proposed  wit-combat 
between  him  and  Fennor.^ 

6.   The  Fortune 

The  Fortune  building  contract  (1600)  provided  for  "ffower 
convenient  divisions  for  gentlemens  roomes  and  other  suffi- 
cient and  convenient  divisions  for  Twoe  pennie  roomes  with 
necessarie  Seates  to  be  placed  and  sett  as  well  in  those  roomes 
as  througheoute  all  the  rest  of  the  galleries."  "^  It  appears 
that  admission  for  twopence  could  still  be  had  at  the  Fortune 
a  good  many  years  later.  Malone  and  Collier  cite  a  passage 
from  Goffe's  Carelesse  Shepherdess^  which  was  acted  at  the 
Salisbury  Court  in  1629: 

I  will  hasten  to  the  money  Box 
And  take  my  shilling  out  again.  .  .  . 
I'll  go  to  th'  Bull  or  Fortune,  and  there  see 
A  Play  for  two  pence  with  a  Jig  to  boot.^ 

In  The  Poetaster  (1601)  Tucca  catechizes  Histrio  as  follows: 
"You  grow  rich,  do  you,  and  purchase,  you  two-penny  tear- 
mouth?  You  have  Fortune  and  the  good  year  *  on  your  side, 
you  stinkard,  you  have,  you  have."  ^  Again,  in  The  Roaring 
Girl,  played  at  the  Fortune  before  161 1,  Moll  points  out  cer- 
tain cutpurses  and  remarks:  "One  of  them  is  a  nip.  I  took 
him  once  in  the  two-penny  gallery  at  the  Fortune."  ^  I  do  not 

1  Works,  1630,  p.  146  (308): 

The  Audience  all  were  wrong'd  with  great  abuse, 
Great  cause  they  had  to  take  it  in  offence, 
To  come  from  their  affaires  with  such  expence 
By  Land  and  Water,  and  then  at  the  play 
So  extraordinarily  to  pay  (Collier). 

And  p.  143  (305):  "The  house  being  fiU'd  with  a  great  Audience,  who  had  all 
spent  their  monies  extraordinarily." 

*  Henslowe  Papers,  p.  5. 

^  From  the  Induction  or  Praludium.  This  very  rare  play  is  in  the  Malone 
collection  in  the  Bodleian  Library.     Cf.  Modern  Language  Notes,  XXXVI, 

337  ff- 

*  I.  e.,  the  plague:  a  large  playhouse,  and  no  plague  to  interfere  with 
acting. 

^  iii,  I  (4)-  *  V,  I,  292-293  (Bullen,  IV,  134). 


3o6  APPENDIX   II 

know  of  any  allusions  to  higher  priced  seats  at  the  Fortune, 
but  no  doubt  the  "gentlemen's  rooms"  brought  the  usual 
higher  rates.  Gentlemen  and  noblemen  by  no  means  limited 
their  patronage  to  the  private  theatres.  The  Venetian  and 
Spanish  ambassadors  are  known  to  have  visited  the  Fortune/ 
and  they  undoubtedly  paid  admission  fees  appropriate  to 
their  rank. 

7.  The  Rose 

No  direct  evidence  is  available  as  to  the  prices  charged 
at  the  Rose,  but  the  chances  are  that  they  did  not  vary  to 
any  considerable  degree  from  those  charged  at  the  other 
Henslowe-Alleyn  houses,  the  Bear  Garden  and  the  Fortune. 
Professor  Wallace's  theory  as  to  the  rates  at  the  Rose  is  un- 
tenable. "  In  Henslowe's  part  of  the  galleries,"  he  says,^  "  the 
price  of  no  seat  (except  occasionally  in  earlier  years)  was 
less  than  a  shilling,  while  in  the  later  years  of  1598  and  1599, 
when  he  received  'the  wholle  gallereys,'  he  charged  no  less 
than  a  shilling  for  a  seat  in  any  of  them.  This  is  shown  by  the 
fact  that  the  regular  entries  of  his  receipts,  with  the  occa- 
sional exceptions  just  referred  to,  are  in  terms  of  pounds  and 
shillings,  not  pence."  After  Henslowe  and  Alleyn  had  built 
the  Fortune  in  1600,  they  moved  the  company  formerly  at 
the  Rose  to  the  new  house,  and  many  of  the  plays  in  the 
repertory  of  the  Rose  were  continued  at  the  Fortune.  Yet 
the  Fortune  and  the  Red  Bull,  newer  and  better  houses  than 
the  old  Rose,  had  their  twopenny  and  threepenny  galleries 
until  the  closing  of  the  theatres.  It  is  incredible,  therefore, 
that  no  one  could  get  into  the  galleries  of  the  Rose  in  1598 
for  less  than  a  shilling.  The  obvious  explanation  for  the  non- 
appearance of  the  pence  in  Henslowe's  accounts  is  that  he 
did  not  bother  to  enter  them,  but  was  content  to  deal  with 
round  numbers,  —  a  practice  he  is  known  to  have  followed 
elsewhere  in  the  Diary. ^ 

^  Calendar  of  State  Papers,  Venetian,  XV,  67;  ^arterly  Review,  CII,  416; 
Nichols,  Progresses  of  James  I,  IV,  67 1;  Birch,  The  Court  and  Times  0/ 
James  I,  II,  270;  Adams,  p.  279,  n.  i. 

2  Englische  Studien,  XLIII,  361. 

^  Cf.  Diary,  I,  124;  II,  96,  129.  If  Wallace's  reasoning  were  valid,  we 
should  be  forced  to  conclude  also  that  at  the  Globe  between  1628  and  1633  no 
one  could  get  into  any  part  of  the  house  for  less  than  a  shilling,  for  Sir  Henry 


APPENDIX  II  307 

8.  The  Red  Bull 

As  regards  prices  at  the  Red  Bull,  no  direct  evidence  has 
hitherto  been  adduced  except  the  passage  from  Goffe  just 
quoted.^  To  this  I  may  add  an  excerpt  from  Edward  AUeyn's 
accounts  for  the  year  1617:  "i  Oct.  I  came  to  London  in  y« 
Coach  and  went  to  ye  Red  Bull,  —  2[<^.]."  2  This,  I  take  it, 
represents  Alleyn's  expenditure  for  his  admission.  The  mere 
fact  that  he  was  a  rich  man  does  not  argue  against  the  like- 
lihood of  his  having  been  content  with  a  cheap  gallery  seat. 
He  grew  rich  because  he  was  canny  in  the  management  of 
his  resources. 

9.   The  Swan 

In  1602  great  preparations  were  made  for  a  special  per- 
formance of  England's  Joy  at  the  Swan.  It  was  advertised 
that  the  play  was  to  be  presented  by  a  company  of  ladies  and 
gentlemen,  and  "the  price  at  comming  in  was  two  shillings 
or  eighteenpence  at  least,"  according  to  Chamberlain.^  One 
Vennard,  who  was  in  charge  of  the  proceedings,  had  ap- 
parently prepared  a  hoax  much  like  that  perpetrated  twelve 
years  later  in  the  Taylor-Fennor  episode  at  the  Hope,  but 
he  was  caught  before  he  could  escape  with  the  receipts.*  The 
prices  were  doubtless  raised  for  the  occasion.  So  far  as  I 
know,  this  is  the  only  available  evidence  concerning  prices 
at  the  Swan. 

10.   The  Blackfriars  ^ 

Turning  to  the  private  theatres,  we  find  that  the  record 
of  prices  at  the  Blackfriars,  the  most  important  of  them  all, 

Herbert's  record  of  the  payments  made  him  to  cover  the  profits  of  his  semi- 
annual benefits  at  that  house,  with  but  a  single  exception,  likewise  shows 
only  pounds  and  shillings  (Malone,  III,  176-177).  But  such  a  conclusion  is 
preposterous. 

1  See  above,  p.  305. 

2  Warner,  Catalogue  of  Dulwich  College  Manuscripts,  p.  165. 

^  Letter  to  Dudley  Carleton,  November  19,  1602  (Camden  Society, 
LXXIX,  163). 

*  Cf.  Lawrence,  II,  68  fF.;  Collier,  III,  130,  208. 

*  I.  e.,  the  first  and  second  theatres  of  that  name.  The  first  was  occupied 
by  a  company  of  children;  the  second  by  Shakspere's  company. 


3o8  APPENDIX  II 

is  unusually  full.  From  the  Diary  of  Philip  Julius,  Duke  of 
Stettin,  who  attended  a  performance  of  the  Blackfriars 
Children  in  1602,  we  learn  that  he  and  his  companions  paid 
at  least  a  shilling  each.^  The  Scornful  Lady  was  given  at 
the  Blackfriars  before  161 6,  and  we  have  already  noted  the 
allusion  in  this  play  to  seats  at  eighteenpence,  as  well  as 
Jonson's  complimentary  references  to  the  sixpenny,  eight- 
eenpence, and  two-shilling  hearers  of  his  Magnetic  Lady^ 
which  was  produced  at  the  Blackfriars  in  1632.2  These 
patrons  of  the  drama  receive  further  honorable  mention  in 
the  Epilogue  to  Jasper  Mayne's  City  Match '  and  the  Pro- 
logue to  Habington's  ^een  of  Aragon^  Blackfriars  produc- 
tions of  (probably)  1639  and  1640.  Finally,  Sir  Humphrey 
Mildmay's  Diary  makes  record  of  his  expending  a  shilling 
at  the  Blackfriars  in  1631,  and  eighteenpence  in  1634.^ 

II.  The  Whitefriars 

The  Itinerarium  of  Otto,  Landgrave  of  Hesse-Cassel,  161 1, 
written  by  a  member  of  the  Landgrave's  suite,  gives  an  ac- 
count of  visits  to  the  London  theatres  resembling  that  of 
the  Duke  of  Stettin  nine  years  earlier.  The  writer  was  much 
impressed  by  the  "Theatrum  da  die  Kinder  spielen,"  and 
calls  them  "die  beste  Compagnia  in  Lunden."  I  take  it 
that  he  refers  to  the  Children  of  the  Queen's  Revels  at  the 

^  "Wer  solcher  Action  zusehen  will,  muss  so  gut  als  unserer  Miinze  acht 
sundische  Schillinge  geben,"  i.  e.,  at  least  one  English  shilling.  See  Royal 
Historical  Society ,  New  Series,  VI,  26-29;  Wallace,  Children  of  the  Chapel, 
p.  107. 

^  See  above,  pp.  297,  n.  4,  299. 
'  See  Collier's  Dodsley,  IX,  330: 
Not  that  he  [the  author]  fears  his  name  can  suffer  wrack 
From  those  who  sixpence  pay  and  sixpence  crack  .  .  . 

or,  turning  to  the  more  opulent  patrons. 
Who,  if  they  speak  not  ill  o'  th'  poet,  doubt 
They  lose  by  the  play,  nor  have  their  two  shillings  out  (Malone  and  Collier). 

*  Collier's  Dodsley,  IX,  339: 

Ere  we  begin,  that  no  man  may  repent 
Two  shillings  and  his  time,  the  Author  sent 
The  Prologue  (Malone  and  Collier). 

5  Collier,  I,  464,  488. 


APPENDIX  II  309 

Whitefriars,  since  Shakspere's  company  occupied  the  Black- 
friars  after  1608.^  We  learn  that  at  the  Whitefriars  also 
from  sixpence  to  half-a-crown  was  charged.^ 

12.   St.  Paul's 

In  a  previous  note  on  the  prices  at  The  Theatre  we  saw 
that,  according  to  Pappe  with  an  Hatchet^  fourpence  was 
charged  at  St.  Paul's  in  1589,  though  it  is  not  certain  that 
this  was  the  lowest  fee.'  It  is  possible  that  higher  priced 
seats  were  to  be  had  also  as  early  as  1589.  In  the  Prologue  to 
Fletcher's  Wornan  Hater,  a  play  produced  by  the  Children 
of  Paul's  in  1606  or  1607,  *^he  audience  is  told  that  "to  the 
utter  discomfort  of  all  twopenny  gallery  men"  there  is  to 
be  no  bawdry  in  it.  This  does  not  necessarily  mean  that 
there  were  twopenny  galleries  at  St.  Paul's,  but  the  fact  that 
these  galleries  are  mentioned  in  another  play  done  by  the 
Paul's  boys,  Middleton's  A  Mad  World  my  Masters  {ca. 
1606),'*  suggests  that  such  was  the  case.  At  all  events,  it 
seems  certain  that  prices  at  St.  Paul's  were  lower  than  at 
the  other  private  theatres.  In  this  connection  a  passage 
from  the  Induction  to  Middleton's  Michaelmas  Term  (St. 
Paul's,  1607)  should  be  noted:  "No  small  money  .  .  .  keeps 
drabs  and  feasts.  But,  gentlemen,  ...  in  cheaper  terms  I 
salute  you,  for  ours  have  but  sixpenny  fees  all  the  year  long." 
This  may  mean,  as  Collier  ^  takes  it,  that  prices  at  St.  Paul's 
did  not  go  above  or  below  sixpence,  or  possibly  that  the  St. 
Paul's  management,  unlike  that  of  other  playhouses,  did 
not  raise  the  rates  when  it  produced  new  plays. 

1  See  Murray,  I,  357;  Hillebrand,  Child  Actors  of  the  i6th  and  17th  Cen- 
turies (MS.  dissertation,  Harvard  University,  1914),  pp.  484-494.  Hille- 
brand does  not  mention  this  document,  but  his  account  of  the  children's 
companies  from  1610  to  1613  makes  it  certain  that  the  Whitefriars  children 
are  the  compagnia  referred  to. 

^  "Hier  kostet  der  eingang  1/2  sh.  nur,  da  an  andern  ortten  woU  1/2 
Cron"  (as  quoted  by  Philip  Losh,  Johannes  Rhenanus,  Marburg  in  Hessen, 
I895,  p.  14,  note  i). 

'  See  above,  p.  303. 

*  v,  2, 36-40:  "  I  know  some  i'  th'  town  that  have  done  as  much,  and  there 
took  such  a  good  conceit  of  their  parts  into  th'  two-penny  room,  that  the 
actors  have  been  found  i'  th'  morning  in  a  less  compass  than  their  stage." 
Bullen,  III,  346-347.  *  III,  150. 


3IO  APPENDIX  II 

13.  The  Cockpit 

In  Fletcher's  Wit  without  Money ^  which  was  played  at  the 
Cockpit  before  1620,  the  half-crown  boxes  are  mentioned. 
Lance  asks  Valentine,  his  gay  young  master,  "Who  extoll'd 
you  in  the  half-crown-boxes,  where  you  might  sit  and  muster 
all  the  beauties?"^  The  Prologue  to  Shirley's  Example^ 
another  Cockpit  play,  suggests  that  sixpence  was  the  lowest 
admission  charged  there  in  1634,  the  date  of  the  piece.^  Sir 
Humphrey  Mildmay  in  his  visits  to  the  theatres  did  not 
neglect  the  Cockpit.  In  1633  he  saw  "a  pretty  and  merry 
comedy"  there  at  the  cost  of  one  shilling.  The  next  year  he 
was  less  fortunate:  "a  base  play  at  the  Cockpitt"  cost  him 
eighteenpence.^ 

14.   The  Salisbury  Court 

So  far  as  I  know,  but  one  specific  allusion  to  prices  at  the 
Salisbury  Court  has  come  to  light,  and  that  I  have  already 
referred  to.  It  appears  in  that  passage  from  Goffe's  Careless 
Shepherdess  which  suggests  the  removal  of  a  shilling  from 
the  Salisbury  Court  money  box,  and  the  reinvestment  of 
twopence  of  it  for  admission  to  a  play  and  jig  at  the  Bull  or 
Fortune.^ 

1  i,  I  (Malone). 

^  He  that  in  the  parish  never  was 

Thought  fit  to  be  o'  the  jury,  has  a  place 
Here,  on  the  bench,  for  sixpence  (Collier). 

'  Collier,  I,  482,  489.  *  See  above,  p.  305. 


Appendix  III 

On  the  Size  of  the  Elizabethan  Playhouses 

De  Witt,  who  may  have  been  inside  the  Swan  Theatre, 
guessed  that  it  could  hold  3,000  people,  and  Fynes  Moryson, 
about  1600,  boasted  that  "the  Citty  of  Londone  alone  hath 
foure  or  fiue  Companyes  of  players  with  their  peculiar  Thea- 
ters Capable  of  many  thousands."^  But  de  Witt  may  have 
exaggerated  unintentionally.  Moryson's  statement  is  con- 
sistent with  the  smaller  estimate  in  the  text,^  and  there  is 
other  evidence  —  not  hitherto  noted,  so  far  as  I  know —  to 
the  same  purpose.  Stockwood  in  his  Sermon  at  St.  Paul's 
Cross  in  1578  stated  that  "a  fylthye  playe  wyth  the  blast  of 
a  trumpette"  would  "sooner  call  thyther  a  thousande  than 
an  houres  tolling  of  a  bell  bring  to  the  sermon  a  hundred."  * 
One  feels  that  he  would  not  have  stopped  at  "a  thousand" 
if  the  capacity  of  The  Theatre  or  The  Curtain,  for  example, 
had  been  anywhere  near  thrice  that  number.  Again,  John 
Field's  Godly  Exhortation  upon  the  destruction  of  the  old 
Bear  Garden  in  1583,  speaks  of  that  amphitheatre  as  hold- 
ing "above  a  thousand  people,"  a  figure  which  supports  our 
interpretation  of  Stockwood's  remark.  The  Hope,  which  oc- 
cupied the  site  of  the  Bear  Garden,  could  hardly  have  been 
much  larger  than  the  old  house.^  And  it  should  be  noted 
that  the  Hope's  contract  stipulated  that  it  was  to  be  built 
of  the  same  size  "as  the  Plaie  house  Called  the  Swan." 
Finally,  there  are  certain  remarks  in  John  Taylor's  Water- 
men s  Suit  concerning  Players  (16 14)  which  bear  upon  the 
point.^    Taylor  says  that  in  the  old  days  there  had  been 

1  Itinerary,  Chap.  3,  p.  476,  ed.  Hughes.  Cf.  Gaedertz,  Zur  Kenntniss  der 
Alt-Englischen  Btihne;  Wheatley,  New  Shakspere  Society  Transactions,  188 j- 
i8g2,  pp.  215  ff. 

2  See  above,  p.  244.  ^  Halliwell-Phillipps,  Illustrations,  p.  19. 

*  See  Halliwell-Phillipps,  pp.  198".;  J.  Q.  Adams,  Shakespearean  Play- 
houses, pp.  326-328. 

'  Works,  1630,  pp.  171  ff. 

3" 


312  APPENDIX  III 

three  companies  of  actors  on  the  Bankside,  besides  the  bear- 
baiting.  They  had  occupied  the  Globe,  the  Rose,  and  the 
Swan,  —  but  at  the  time  of  the  suit  only  the  King's  Men  at 
the  Globe  remained.  The  net  loss  of  patronage  to  the  water- 
men as  a  result  of  the  suspension  of  playing  at  the  Rose, 
Swan,  and  Bear  Garden,  Taylor  reckons  at  "three  or  four 
thousand  people  euery  day  in  the  weeke."  These  three  or 
four  thousand  divided  among  the  three  houses,  make  up 
about  as  large  an  audience  as  one  would  expect  in  theatres 
having  an  average  capacity  of  1,500  people  at  most.  One  hun- 
dred admissions  at  between  sixpence  and  a  shilling,  and  1,000 
or  more  at  a  penny,  twopence,  and  threepence,  would  account 
for  an  average  house  paying  the  £10  gatherings  mentioned 
in  connection  with  Sir  Henry  Herbert's  benefits.^ 

^  See  above,  p.  242. 


Index 


Index 


Abington,  Mrs.,  87,  93/.,  102,  281. 

Accidents,  in  the  theatre,  i8a. 

Acting  rights,  violation  of,  51  _^. 

Actor-playwrights,  see  Playwrights. 

Actor-sharers,  27/.,  71,  75,  78/., 
105,  244/.;  as  producers,  70; 
their  earnings,  78,  95/.  See  also 
Dramatic  Companies,  Players, 
and  Housekeepers. 

Actors'  Benevolent  Fund,  91,  96, 
98^.,  118.  See  also  Players, 
Managers,  and  Pensions. 

Actors'  Remonstrance,  The,  29, 
218/.,  224,  297. 

Actors'  strikes,  4,  28,  71/.,  74/.,  79, 
107.    See  also  Players. 

Actors'  unions,  4.  See  also  Players 
and  Statement  of  Differences. 

Actresses,  32,  92,  102;  first  appear- 
ance of,  77,  92;  salaries,  82,  92^.; 
benefits,  81,  84,  93/.;  livery, 
170/.,  2^8. 

Adams,  J.  Q.,  9,  n.;  121/.,  n.  3; 
143,  n.  2;  195,  n.  i;  198,  n.  2; 
204,  n,  i;  249,  n.  i;  277,  306, 
n.i;  311,  n.  4. 

Addison,  14,  45,  51,  59,  238,  269. 

Admiral's  Men,  the,  22,  25/.,  75, 
154,  165,  188,  190,  236/.,  250, 
254,  259.  See  also  under  Not- 
tingham. 

Admission,  rates  of,  etc.,  see  Box- 
office. 

Advanced  prices,  see  Box-office. 

Adventures  of  Five  Hours,  The,  167, 
238. 

Ages,  Heywood's,  7. 

Aglaura,  46. 

Agreeable  Surprise,  The,  52. 

Akerby,  G.,  151,  n.  i. 

Alchemist,  The,  23. 


Alexander  the  Great,  40. 

Alfred,  38. 

All  for  Love,  31,  256. 

Allen,  G.,  129,  209/.,  271. 

Alleyn,  E.,  actor  and  manager,  22, 
72,  74/.,  106/.,  121,  206,  211/., 
254,  304,  306. 

Alleyn,  J.,  253. 

Amends  for  Ladies,  236. 

Andrews,  C.  E.,  29,  n.  2. 

Anne,  Queen  (wife  of  James  I),  92, 
n.  4;  159,  183/.,  188;  Queen 
Anne's  Men,  72,  169. 

Anne,  Queen,  98,  128,  131,  148,  177, 
184/.,  187,213. 

Annual  Register,  182,  n.  3;  244, 
n.  I. 

Antipodes,  The,  8,  29,  251. 

Antonio  and  Mellida,  189,  n.  2. 

Arab,  The,  86. 

Archer,  W.,  204,  n.  i;  225,  n.  i; 
298. 

Areopagitica,  11. 

Armin,  Robert,  27,  n.  3. 

Ashbury,  J.,  91. 

Aston,  Anthony,  11,  n.  6;   79,  89. 

Astrologaster,  The,  71,  n.  6. 

Audiences,  6/.,  85,  102,  142/.; 
conservatism  of,  279;  as  judges 
of  theatrical  disputes,  ii'jjff.,  133, 
146;  close  relations  with  players, 
89,  I02;  riots,  factions,  and  mob 
tyranny,  19,  39,  65,  96,  in,  117, 
ii9>  123,  144/.,  227,  232/.,  239. 
See  also  Stage  Beaux. 

Author's  Farce,  The,  and  the  Pleas- 
ures of  the  Town,  12,  n.  3;  63, 
134. 

Baddeley,  R.,  actor,  99. 
Baker,  H.  B.,  190,  n.  3. 


Z^S 


3i6 


INDEX 


Ballads    and    ballad-mongers,    198, 
n.  4;  259,  265/. 

Bancroft,  manager  of  Covent  Gar- 
den, 118. 

Banishment  of  Cicero,  The,  65. 

Banks,  John,  82,  283. 

Bannister,  J.,  90,  n.  i. 

Barclay,  W.,  46. 

Barrie,  Sir  J.  M.,  21,  69. 

Barry,  Mrs.  Elizabeth,  25,  79,  81, 
88,  125,  163,  266. 

Barry,  Spranger,  93,  149. 

Bartholomew  Fair,  11,  223,  260,  271, 
280,  297,  299,  301,  n.  2;   304. 

Bateman's  Ghost,  12. 

Bath,  theatricals  at,  100,  151. 

Baxter,  R,,  actor,  287. 

Bear  Garden,  9,  n.;  22,  106,  206/., 
223,  260,  303,  304,  306,  311/. 

Beard,  J.,  99,  118,  133. 

Beaumont,  Francis,  7/.,  61,  193, 
197,  236,  238,  267. 

Bedford,  Duke  of,  192,  197. 

Beeston,  C,  71/.,  96. 

Beeston,  W.,  122. 

Beggar's  Opera,  The,  118,  146,  194; 
Gay's  difficulty  in  getting  it  pro- 
duced,  61;     its   success,   42,    52, 

133, /35.  152,  239/- 

Beggar's  Pantomime,  The,  or.  The 
Contending  Columbines,  118,  n,  i. 

Behn,  Mrs.  Aphra,  38,  56. 

Belasco,  David,  249. 

Bellamy,  Mrs.  G.  A.,  38,  61,  n.  2; 
84,  87,  88,  n.  2;  95,  146,  149,  173, 
191/. 

Bellases,  Sir  H.,  176. 

Bellchambers,  E.,  78,  79,  n.  i;  82, 
n.  4;  84,  n.  2;   io2,  n.  2;  I93,  n.  I. 

Belle  Savage,  the,  223,  303. 

Bellendon,  235,  n.  4. 

Bellman  of  London,  26,  302,  n.  3. 

Benefits,  J^^  underPlaywrights, Play- 
ers, and  individual  names. 

Betterton,  Thomas,  11,  45,  52,  122, 
163,  177.  192,  196/-,  243,  268, 
287;  "star"  actor,  92;  D'Ave- 
nant's  deputy  manager,   10,  92,  I 


n.  2;  109;  manager  of  the  Uinted 
Company,  in/.;  secedes  to 
Lincoln's  Inn  Fields,  33/.,  79/., 
112^.,  126;  at  the  Haymarket, 
126,  78/.;  fines  Colley  Cibber, 
82,  III;  helps  Otway,  36;  his 
plays,  57;  benefits  and  earnings, 
78/.,  84,  88,  91/.;  gifts  to,  84; 
instructs  amateurs  at  court,  185; 
Dryden's  praise  of,  109;  reputa- 
tion and  character,  102. 

Betterton,  Mrs.,  98,  185,  187. 

Betty,  W.H.W.,  151. 

Bickerstaffe,  Isaac,  44. 

Bird,  T.,  actor,  287. 

Bird,  W.,  actor,  27,  n.  3;  253. 

Birt,  N.,  actor,  287. 

Blagdon,  N.,  actor,  287. 

Blackfriars,  the,  theatre,  9,  28,  46, 
70,  107,  184,  206-210,  224,  242, 
246,    251,    280,    299,    302,  n.  3; 

307/- 

Boaden,  J.,  194,  n.  2. 

BoHngbroke,  Lord,  13,  90,  132. 

Bondman,  The,  298,  n.  10. 

Booth,  Barton,  17,  38,  64,  89^.,  93, 
95,  112,  126,  131/.,  137,  178,  192, 
194. 

Booth,  Mrs.,  138. 

Boswell,  James,  87. 

Boxes,  private,  222,  229,  299/.,  302. 

Box-office,  221-244;  the  Eliza- 
bethan system  and  rates  of  ad- 
mission, 28,  222jf.,  295-310,  312; 
low  charges  to  groundlings,  225; 
high  rates  and  thin  houses  in  the 
Restoration,  224-229;  advanced 
rates,  41,  85,  223,  n.  3;  231/.; 
double  rates  at  first  performances, 
229-234,  304;  half-price,  232/.; 
daily  takings,  151,  183,  n.  i;  230, 
235.  239,  241-244.  See  also 
Repertory. 
Boy  actors,  77,  170,  195.    See  also 

Children's  companies. 
Boy  ushers,  233,  250. 
Bracegirdle,    Mrs.,    88/.,   92,    125, 
192,  282. 


INDEX 


317 


Braynes,  J.,  partner  of  James  Bur- 

bage,  206. 
Brett,  Colonel,  127. 
Bristol,  Earl  of,  46,  167,  n.  4. 
Brome,  A.,  50,  n.  3. 
Brome,  Richard,  8,  50,   189,  n.  2; 
249,    251 ;     Jonson's    apprentice, 
96;   actor-sharer,  27;   sued  by  the 
players,  29,  32. 
Brooke,  H.,  53. 
Brothers,  The,  38,  47. 
Brown,  R.,  249,  n.  i;  306,  n.  i. 
Brown,  Tom,  60,  n.  2;  83. 
Brunswick,  Prince  of,  182,  n.  3. 
Brunton,  Louisa,  Countess  of  Cra- 
ven, 194. 
Buc,  Sir  G.,  Master  of  the  Revels, 

154. 
Buckingham,  Duke  of,  39. 
Bullock,  W.,  actor,  252,  266,  268. 
Bulwer-Lytton,  190. 
Burbage,  Cuthbert,  financial  man- 
ager   of    the    Burbage    interests, 
107/.,    121,    129,    150,   195,   205, 
208/. 
Burbage,  James,  107/.,  121,  153/., 

202,  205/.,  209/.,  225,  271. 
Burbage,  Richard,  22,  71,  loi,  121, 
129,  150;   his  acting,  72,  74,  183, 
221,   280,   283;     his   apprentices, 
96;  housekeeper  in  the  Globe  and 
the  Blackfriars,   107/.,   195;    re- 
lations  with   Shakspere    and   his 
company,  108. 
Burgoyne,  General,  48. 
Burt,  N.,  287. 
Busino,  O.,  248/. 
Bute,  Lx)rd,  182. 
Butler,  Mrs.,  80. 
Bynning,  W.,  250. 
Byron,  69,  190,  197. 

Cademan,  actor,  98. 

Caius  Marius,  37. 

Calisto,  179,  184/. 

Cambridge  .University,    dramatics 

at,  195. 
Campion,  184. 


Cardinal  Wolsey,  254. 

Careless  Shepherdess,  The,  305,  307, 

310. 
Carleton,  D.,  307,  n.  3. 
Carlile,  Sir  L.,  46. 
Caroline,  Queen,  147,  181. 
Carpezan,  see  Thackeray. 
Cartwright,  W.,  actor,  287,  290. 
Caryll,  J.,  238. 

Case  is  Altered,  The,  295,  n.  5. 
Case  of  Authors  Stated,  The,  see  J. 

Ralph. 
Castlemaine,  Lady,  167. 
Castle  Spectre,  The,  19,  240. 
Catiline's     Conspiracy,     no,     164, 

255- 

Catley,  Anne,  93jf.,  102,  281. 

Cato,  14,  45,  89,  132,  145,  185,  238. 

Censorship,  Elizabethan,  122,  143/., 
166;  post-Restoration,  144.  See 
also  Master  of  the  Revels,  Lord 
Chamberlain,  and  Licensing  Act. 

Centlivre,  Mrs.,  56. 

Chalmers,  G.,  50,  n.  3;    71,  n.  3, 

n-4;  73>  n-  i;  75."-  5?  96,  "•  ^\ 
97,  n.  2;  108,  n.  3;  109,  n.  i; 
no,  n.  3;  157,  n.  i,  n.  2;  160, 
n.  4;  162,  n.  I,  n.  2;  174,  n.  2; 
177,  n.  2;    198,  n.  4;   277,  n.  i. 

Chamberlain,  J.,  307,  n.  3. 

Chamberlain,  the  Lord,  official 
guardian,  arbitrator,  and  ruler  of 
the  theatre,  53,  77/.,  95,  no, 
114,  119/-.  126 -131,  139,  140- 
144,  153,  159,  165,  172,  180,  183, 
188,  199,  275/.,  302,  n.  3;  docu- 
ments of  the  Lord  Chamberlain's 
Office,  no,  164,  165,  n.  3;  168, 
170/.,  287-294;  the  Lord  Cham- 
berlain's Men,  see  Shakspere's 
company.  See  also  Censorship, 
Master  of  the  Revels,  Licensing 
Act. 

Chambers,  E.  K.,  157,  n.  i;  158, 
n.  3;    198,  n.  I. 

Chapman,  143/. 

Charitable  contributions,  by  play- 
ers,   playwrights,    and    theatres, 


3i8 


INDEX 


43.  47.  88,  99,  176,  276/.    See 
also  Actors'  Benevolent  Fund. 

Charke,  Mrs.,  44. 

Charles  I,  46,  92,  n.  4;  253,  n.  3; 
censors  plays,  166;  Prynne's 
attack  on,  156;  his  patent  to 
D'Avenant,  76,  122;  patron  of 
the  theatre,  159/.,  166,  174, 
177/.,  200. 

Charles  II,  8, 122, 174/-,  181/.,  190, 
194;  his  grants  to  D'Avenant 
and  Killigrew,  76,  122,  166/.; 
personal  government  of  the 
theatre,  no,  123,  144,  167;  be- 
friends playwrights,  167;  grants 
liveries  to  actresses,  171;  general 
patronage  of  the  theatre,  107, 
i6i#.,  167  if.,  178/.,  184,  255. 

Charles  VIII,  237. 

Charlewood,  J.,  260. 

Chesterfield,  Lord,  135,  227,  n.  3. 

Chettle,  Henry,  24/. 

Chetwood,  W.  R.,  51,  82,  n.  4;  90, 
n.  l;  91,  95,  n.  2;  97,  193,  n.  i; 
238,  n.  3;  262/. 

Child,  Anne,  actress,  288. 

Children's  companies,  28,  70,  n.  3; 
307,  n.  5;  308/.;  competition 
with  adult  actors,  150,  200.  See 
also  Boy  actors. 

Chinese  Festival,  The,  19. 

Cholmley,  J.,  206,  218,  271. 

Christ's  Tears  over  Jerusalem,  248. 

Chu  Chin  Chow,  240,  n.  5. 

Cibber,  Colley,  8,  13/.,  16,  n.  3;  45, 
52,  54,  75.  n-  2;  78,  n-  3;  83/., 
88,  95,  n.  2;  97,  112,  n.  3; 
113,  n.  2,  n.  3;  123,  148,  151/., 
193,  196/.,  198,  n.  4;  200,  222, 
238,  243,  256,  262,  n.  3;  263,  279; 
his  acting,  2i2)-,  82,  in;  his  first 
prologue,  54/.;  his  plays,  57/., 
90,  118,  145,  152,  239;  his  odes, 
44;  his  income  and  expenditures, 
29,  ioff.\  his  character  and  reputa- 
tion, 103;  his  Apology,  57,  177: 
on  Fielding,  43/.,  63,  134/.;  Pope, 
44,    54,    n.   4;     58;     Christopher  I 


Rich,  15,  80,  115,  124/.,  273; 
Congreve  and  Vanbrugh,  2>3-f-'t 
his  revolt  against  Rich,  127^.; 
his  management  of  Drury  Lane, 
58-64,  90,  92/.,  97,  115,  131/., 
138/.,  141,  178,  214;  his  partner- 
ship with  Steele,  35,  131/.,  268/.; 
pantomimes,  17,  231;  players' 
salaries  and  benefits,  iof.\  so- 
cial status  of  players,  102;  court 
performances,  161,  i^jff-,  185; 
acting  at  Oxford,  175/.,  277. 

Cibber,  Theophilus,  18,  n.  i;  57, 
62,  n.  3;  63,  67,  n.  I,  n.  3;  88, 
95.  n-  2;  138/.,  142,  n.  4;  146, 
148/.,  152,  n.  4;  231/.,  240,  n.  3; 
243,  n.  5;  274. 

Cibber,  Mrs.,  93,  118,  149/.,  243, 
278,  281. 

Circe,  231. 

City  Match,  The,  308. 

City  Politics,  227,  n.  3. 

City  Wit,  The,  189,  n,  2. 

Claqueurs,  38,  272jf. 

Clarendon,  Earl  of,  226/. 

Clark,  A.,  226,  n.  2;  294  n. 

Cleodora,  Queen  of  Aragon,  188,  308. 

Cleone,  61. 

Clive,  Lord,  89. 

Clive,  Mrs.,  10,  n.  i;  86,  89,  115/., 
118,  146,  192,  281. 

Clun,  W.,  167,  287. 

Cockain,  Sir  A.,  299,  n.  2. 

Cockpit,  the  (the  Phoenix,  theatre), 
9,  n.;  29,  122,  123,  218,  224,  277, 
299,  310. 

Collier,  Jeremy,  125,  265. 

Collier,  J.  P.,  25,  n.  3;  77,  n.  i;  97, 
n.  2;  163,  n.  i;  167,  n.  4;  204, 
n.  2;  209,  n.  i;  218,  222,  230, 
n.  6;  253,  n.  3;  254,  n.  i;  260, 
n.  i;  272,  n.  3;  280,  n.  3;  295- 
310  and  notes. 

Collier,  W.,  iigff. 

Colman,  G.,  the  Elder,  51,  53,  68, 
^33f-y  137.  146,  270. 

Colman,  G.,  the  Younger,  51/.,  68, 
116,  137,  283,  n.  3. 


INDEX 


319 


Command  Nights,  see  the  Court  and 
the  Theatres. 

Commercialism  in  the  theatre,  3,  26. 

Commonwealth  drama,  8. 

Companies,  see  Dramatic  Com- 
panies. 

Comparison  between  the  Stages,  A, 
see  Gildon. 

Competition,  unscrupulous  meth- 
ods of,  150,  153,  155;  between 
Elizabethan  companies,  iiff-,  150; 
between  post-Restoration  theatres, 
3o/->  II3>  132,  149/-;  between 
legitimate  drama,  opera,  and 
spectacle,  9/.,  14,  130;  between 
amateur  and  professional  play- 
wrights, 45^.;  between  English 
and  foreign  actors,  9/".;  between 
rival  stars,  93,  149,  153;  for  play- 
ers, plays,  and  extra  attractions, 
ifojf.;  agreements  to  eliminate, 
see  Theatre  "Trusts." 

Comus,  93,  152,  193. 

Condell,  H.,  28,  71,  280. 

Confederacy,  The,  45,  n.  4. 

Confess  (actor?),  184. 

Congreve,  23^  54,  126,  191,  n.  3; 
200,  238,  264. 

Conquest  of  China,  The,  2(>->  "•  ^* 

Conscious  Lovers,  The,  264. 

Constant  Couple,  The,  42,  238. 

Constantine  the  Great,  36,  48. 

Cook,  Alexander,  71,  75. 

Cook,  D.,  84,  n.  2;  187,  229,  n.  i. 

Cooke,  G.  F.,  19. 

Cooke,  W.,  136,  n.  3;  257,  n.  3. 

Cooperative  methods  in  the  theatre, 
see  Theatre  "Trusts." 

Copyright,  authors',  see  Playwrights. 

Coriolanus,  67, 

Cork,  actors  in,  95. 

Corneille,  46. 

Coj-nelianum,  Dolium,  301,  n.  2. 

Cornish,  VV.,  200. 

Coronation  Ceremony  of  Anne 
Boleyn,  239. 

Coryat,  T.,  92,  n.  4;  204,  n.  2. 

Costumes  and  apparel,  86,  113,  130, 


183,  245-289;  Elizabethan,  7,  46, 
165,  188,  233,  242,  —  underrated 
by  Restoration  commentators, 
245-250,  253  ff.;  post-Restora- 
tion, 31/.,  45,  237,  255/.;  loans 
and  gifts  of,  to  players,  —  by 
royalty,  163/.,  190,  249,  —  by 
the  nobility,  190^. 

Country  Wife,  The,  227,  n.  3. 

Court  and  Society  from  Elizabeth 
to  Anne,  91,  n.  3. 

Court,  the,  and  the  theatres,  95, 
102/.,  113,  126,  128,  147/.,  156- 
201 ;  gifts  and  other  aid  to  dram- 
atists, players,  and  managers, 
44/-,  49.  54,  61,  65/.,  79,  84, 
88/.,  98/.,  132,  136,  157,  162/., 
167,  180/.,  195/.,  213/.;  court 
performances, — professional,  108, 
157/-,  i72/->  i77/->  212,— 
amateur,  183-187,  216,  —  see  also 
under  Masques  and  Revels;  pri- 
vate theatres  at  court,  161,  165, 
176-180;  command  nights  in  the 
public  theatres,  181/.;  private 
performances  for  noblemen,  159, 
187/.;  companies  licensed  by 
royalty  or  nobility,  159/.,  170, 
174,  187,  190;  official  and  per- 
sonal relations  between  players 
and  the  court,  see  Players;  court 
control  of  the  theatres,  see  Lord 
Chamberlain,  Master  of  the  Rev- 
els, Licensing  Act.  See  also  under 
individual  monarchs. 

Court  Beggar,  The,  29/.,  n.  2. 

Courthope,  W.  J.,  14,  n.  4;  55,  n.  3, 
n.  4. 

Covent  Garden  Theatre,  52/.,  61/., 
65,  68,  86,  93,  95,  98/.,  105,  116, 
"8/.,  133,  136/.,  141,  145,  149- 
155.  173.  182,  186,  193,  197,211- 
216,  229,  n.  2;  232/.,  244,  256/., 
269/.,  273,  275;  Conduct  of  the 
Four  Managers  of.  The,  by  A 
Frequenter  of  that  Theatre,  219; 
Covent  Garden  Newspaper  Cut- 
tings, 145,  n.  I;  Annals  of  Covent 


320 


INDEX 


Garden  Theatre,  see  H.  S.  Wynd- 
ham.  See  also  Statement  of  Dif- 
ferences, Playbills,  Actors'  Benev- 
olent Fund,  John  Rich,  Colman 
the  Elder,  T.  Harris,  and  J.  Beard. 

Cowley,  36,  237. 

Crack  Me  this  Nut,  254. 

Cranwigge,  J.,  216. 

Creizenach,  W.,  230,  n.  I. 

Critic,  The,  63,  272,  n.  5. 

Cross,  W.  L.,  36,  44,  n-  1;  63,  n.  2, 
n.  4;  66,  n.  i;  86,  n.  2;  134, 
notes;  135,  136,  n.  i;  141,  n.  2; 
221,  n.;  240,  n.  4. 

Crowley,  R.,  304. 

Crowne,  John,  8,  31/.,  167, 168,  n.  i ; 
179,  184/.,  200,  227,  n.  3_,  237. 

Cruelty  of  the  Spaniards  in  Peru, 
The,  226. 

Crusade,  The,  98,  256. 

Cumberland,  Richard,  19/.,  51,  n, 
2/.,  65/.,  68,  86,  99,  151,273. 

Cunningham,  P.,  53,  n.  2;  55,  n.  3; 
67,  n.  i;  157,  n.  i;  159,  n.  i, 
n.  3;  160,  n.  3,  n.  4;  162,  notes 
1-3;  195,  n.  2;  200,  n.  2;  212, 
n.  3;  219. 

Curll,  E.,  95,  n.  2;  96,  n.  3. 

Curtain,  the,  theatre,  9,  n.;  108, 
153,216,303,311. 

Cutter  of  Coleman  Street,  The,  237. 

Cynthia's  Revels,  247,  n.  6;  301. 

Daborne,  Robert,  23,  26/. 

Daily  Courant,  The,  266/.,  269. 

Daily  Post,  The,  269,  271. 

Dalton,  Mrs.,  288. 

Dancers,  see  Foreign  singers  and 
dancers. 

Daniel,  Samuel,  184. 

D'Avenant,  Charles,  231. 

D'Avenant,  Sir  WiUiam,  12,  mff., 
124,  166,  177,  n.  2,  196,  198,  213, 
264;  his  pre-Restoration  activi- 
ties, 226;  his  patents,  76/.,  122/.; 
manager  of  the  Duke's  Men, 
Lincoln's  Inn  Fields,  8^.,  32/., 
76/.,  122;   his  difficulties,  I09j^., 


123;  introduces  scenery,  8,  249, 
251,  255;  his  plays,  8,  n.;  26, 
109,  163,  238;  his  company,  30/., 
123/.,  175/.,  190,  237,  291,  n.  I. 

Davenport,  "Francis,  Elizabeth, 
and  Jane  "  (actresses),  171,  288. 

Davies,  T.,  16,  37,  n.;  42,  n.  5;  48, 
50/.;  61,  n.  2;  64,  n.  1;  66,  n.  2; 
93,  n.  6;  98,  100,  n.;  139,  149, 
n.  3;    173,  185,  240,  n.  3;   243. 

Davis,  H.,  254. 

Davis,  Moll,  92,  238. 

Dawes,  Robert,  74,  115. 

Day,  John,  280. 

Dead  Term,  The,  296,  n.  3. 

Dear  Little  Devil,  A,  199. 

Dear  Little  Lady,  A,  199. 

Deborah,  86. 

Dedications,  see  Playwrights. 

Defoe,  1 42/. 

Dekker,  22,  24^.,  54  n.  i;  200,216, 
228,  230,  234,  248,  259,  n.  i;  264, 
295/.,  298,  300/.,  302,  n.  3,  305. 

Delany,  Mrs.,  13,  48,  n.  3;  142,  n.  4; 
195,  n.  3.  ^ 

Demoiselles  a.  la  Mode,  59,  n.  i. 

Denham,  Sir  John,  46. 

Denmark,  King  of,  at  the  EngUsh 
Court,  172/.,  178. 

Dennis,  John,  152. 

Derby,  Earl  of,  45/.,  187;  Memoirs 
of  the   Countess  of,   172,   186/., 

194,  259/- 

Destruction  of  Jerusalem,  The,  31. 

Devil  is  an  Ass,  The,  261. 

Devil  upon  Two  Sticks,  The,  136. 

Devonshire,  Duke  of,  89. 

deWitt,  J.,  311. 

Dibdin,  Charles,  68. 

Dibdin,  J.  C,  159,  n.  2;  185,  n.  4; 
250. 

Dibdin,  Thomas,  68. 

Dido,  195. 

Discipline,  lack  of,  in  post-Restora- 
tion theatres,  111-120.  See  also 
Managers. 

Discourse  of  the  English  Stage,  A, 
245. 


INDEX 


321 


Discovery,  The,  42. 

Doctor  Faustus,  26,  235. 

Doctor  Faustus's  Death,  12. 

Dodsley,  R.,  61,  167,  n.  4;  272,  n.  3; 
280,  n.  3;  308,  n.  4,  n.  5. 

Dogget,  Thomas,  57,  103,  113/., 
125,  129;  first  (?)  star,  91/.;  co- 
manager  of  Drury  Lane,  17,  90, 

131/- 
Don  Carlos,  238. 
Don  Sebastian,  109. 
Doran,  J,,  38,  n.  2;    43,  n.  2;    44, 
n.  4;    45,  n.  3;    46,  54,  88,  n.  2; 
90,  n.  I;   103,  n.  2,  n.  3;   145,  n.  2; 
149,  n.  3;    153,  n.  2;    185,  n.  4; 
186,  n.  2;    192,  194,  n.  3;    195, 
n.  3;    197,  n.  3;    201,  n.  i;    256, 
270,  278,  n.  2;    279;    on  the  star 
system,  91/. 
Dorset,  Duke  of,  89. 
Dorset  Gardens  (Garden)  Theatre, 

34,  213,  217,  237. 
Douglas,  61. 

Downes,   John,    10,   34,   38,    n.    2; 
41,46,  92,  96,  98,  n.  2;  121/.,  126, 
142,  n. 3;  163,  167,  n. 4;  I75>i77> 
229,  n.  i;    230,  235,  237/.,  242, 
n.  4;   243,  n.  5;   255/. 
Do    You    Know    What    You     are 
About?  —  14,  n.  3;   138,  240,  n.  2. 
Dramatic  Companies,  — 
Elizabethan:    licensed  by  royalty 
or  the  nobility,  see  the  Court 
and  the  Theatres;    competition 
between,   6,   8,   22^.;    general 
management    in    their    charge, 
70/.,  105,  108;    democratic  or- 
ganization,    no     stars,     72/.; 
gradual   loss   of  independence, 
33,  76/.,  121;  business  arrange- 
ments,  70-76,   93,    loc^jff.    {see 
also    Henslowe    and   Langley); 
discipline,  74,  109;   desertion  of 
actors,    74;     friendship   among 
members,  73,  97;    their  mem- 
bers  as   housekeepers,  28,   75; 
their  hirelings,  71;    retiring  al- 
lowances and  pensions,  75,  97;   I 


difficulties  with  playwrights  and 
housekeepers,  29^.,  107;  in  the 
provinces,    see    Strolling    Play- 
ers.   See  also  Actor-sharers  and 
Housekeepers. 
Post-Restoration:      star     players 
and  managers  usurp  company 
prerogatives,  77;    troubles  with 
playwrights,    30 jf.;     poor    dis- 
cipline, 109 jf.;    desertions  and 
revolts,  79,  113  ff-,  128^.;    the 
United  Companies   (1682),   59, 
79/.,   96,    in/.,    123/.,   213, 
293;    the  second  union  (1707), 
80,  126/.;   the  Company  of  the 
Revels,  139.    See  also  Players, 
Managers,  Sir  William  D'Ave- 
nant,  Killigrew,  Colley  Cibber, 
etc. 
Dramatic  criticism,  267-271. 
Dramatic  memoirs,  36,  42/.,  52/". 
Dramatic  romances,  7/. 
Dramatist,  The,  48,  n.  5;  181. 
Dramatists,  see  Playwrights. 
Drayton,  26,  28,  200. 
Drummer,  The,  51. 
Drummond,  23. 

Drury  Lane  Theatre,  10,  15/.,  18, 
33,  35.  42,  45.  47/-.  52  n.,  4; 
60/.,  76,  n.  2;  78/.,  93/.,  96/., 
99,  102,  111-117,  124-145,  147, 
149-155.  161,  165/.,  173,  178, 
186,  193,  196/.,  211-216,  229, 
n.  2;  232/.,  238/.,  242/.,  244, 
251,  255,  257,  262,  264,  269,274, 
291/.  See  also  under  individual 
managers,  Christopher  Rich,  Col- 
ley Cibber,  Garrick,  etc.,  and 
under  Theatrical  finance,  Play- 
ers, etc. 
D-ry  L-ne  P-yh-se  Broke  Open,  18. 
Dryden,  30,  33,  50,  184,  200,  213, 
225,  266;  agrees  to  write  three 
plays  a  year,  30;  favored  by 
Charles  II,  167;  complaint  of  the 
King's  Men  against  him,  30/.; 
his  shares,  benefits,  and  finances, 
29/-.    35.   39/-.    55;     his    pro- 


322 


INDEX 


logues  and  epilogues,  55,  176,  282; 

his  plays,  30/.,  46,  5°»  ^09.  ^91-> 

237/.,    256;     on    thin    houses    in 

Restoration    times,    126;     praises 

Betterton,  109. 
Dublin,   theatricals   in,   93^.,    147, 

191,  243. 
Duenna,  The,  35,  240. 
Duke  of  York's  Men  (1609),  72. 
Duke's  Men,  the  (Restoration),  see 

D'Avenant's  company. 
Duke's  Theatre,   the,  see  Lincoln's 

Inn  Fields;   Dorset  Gardens. 
Dulwich  College,  260.  See  also  under 

Warner. 
Dunciad,  The,  44,  58,  n.  2. 
Dunsany,  Lord,  190. 
D'Urfey,  Tom,  43>  45.  181,  227,  n.  3, 

282,  283,  n.  I,  n.  2. 
Dutch  Courtezan,  The,  189,  n.  2. 
Dyce,  A.,  200,  n.  3. 

Edinburgh,  see  under  Scotland  and 

J.  C.  Dibdin. 
Edward  and  Eleanora,  53. 
Edwards,  R.,  195. 
Edwin,  J.,  84,  n.  2;    137,  147,  n-  3; 

272,  n.  2. 
Effingham,  Lord,  65. 
Egerton,  W.,  93,  n.  2;  193,  n.  i;24i, 

246,  n.  3;   252,  n.  I. 
Elephants   on   the   stage,   see   Per- 
forming animals. 
Elizabeth,    Princess     (daughter    of 

James  I),  159,  170,  172,  184;   the 

Lady  Elizabeth's  Men,  24.7,  250, 

260,  277. 
Elizabeth,  Queen,  loi,  154,  156,  190, 

229;   her  patronage  of  the  drama, 

157/.,  164,  188,  195. 
Elizabethan   drama,    influenced    by 

the  organization  of  the  dramatic 

companies,  73. 
Ellys,  J.,  138. 
Eloisa,  38/.,  273. 
England's  Joy,  261,  307. 
Englishman  in  Paris,  The,  86. 
Epilogues,  see  Prologues. 


Essays  of  Elia,  274,  n.  4. 

Essex,  Lord,  197;  Essex's  Men,  278, 

the  Essex  conspiracy,  234. 
Estcourt,  Richard,  57,  84,  127. 
Etherege,  200. 
Eurydice  Hissed,  225,  n.  4. 
Evans,  T.,  41,  n.  5;    44,  n.  5;    51, 

n.  i;    55,  n.  3. 
Evelyn,  John,  161. 
Every  Man  Out  of  his  Humor,  296, 

n.  I. 
Example,  The,  301,  n.  3;  310. 

Fair  Quaker  of  Deal,  The,  6t,,  n,  i. 

Fair  Quarrel,  A,  241 . 

Faithful  Shepherdess,  The,  163,  297, 
n.  5. 

Fancy's  Theatre,  205,  n.  2. 

Farinelli,  C,  243. 

Farquhar,  10,  42,  57,  67,  202,  238, 
264. 

Farren,  Miss,  see  Countess  of  Derby. 

Fatal  Curiosity,  The,  135. 

Fatal  Marriage,  The,  41,  50. 

Fawcett,  J.,  283. 

Fenner,  G.,  45. 

Fennor,  W.,  "the  king's  majestys' 
rhyming  poet,"  215,  230,  261,  263, 
n.  2;  305,  307. 

Fenton,  E.,  61. 

Fenton,  Lavinia,  Duchess  of  Bolton, 
194. 

Feuillerat,  A.,  158,  n.  i;  164,  n.  5; 
165,  n.  2;  210,  n.  I ;  249,  254,  n.  3. 

Fideli,  Don  Sigismondi,  10. 

Field,  J.,  311. 

Field,  Nathaniel,  actor-playwright, 
27,   54,  236,   280,  283;    business 
manager  of  the  Lady  Elizabeth's 
Men,  73,  109,  260/. 
Fielding,  12,  36,  66,  199,  225,  240; 
his  plays,  86,   134/.,  281,  n.  4; 
his  benefits,  43;    his  management 
of  the  Little  Haymarket,   I34jf. 
See  also  under  Colley  Cibber. 
Finances  of  the  theatres,  see  Theat- 
rical finance. 
Fine  Companion,  A.,  230. 


INDEX 


3'^3 


Fines  and  forfeits,  imposed  upon 
actors,  74,  82,  in/.,  115/.,  118/. 

Fitzgerald,  P.,  34,  n.  5;  35,  38,  n.  i; 
42,  n-  3;    51.  "•  3;   64,  n.  2;    83, 

"•  5;  9°.  93.  n-  5;  100.  "•;  103. 

n.  i;  117,  124,  n.  2,  n.  3;  125, 
n.  2;  126,  n.  4;  128,  n.  I;  129, 
n.  i;  130,  n.  2;  131,  n.;  133,0.4; 
134,"-  i;  i39>nM  141,  n.  1,0.3; 
142,  n.  i;  143,  n.  2;  144,  n.  3; 
146,  n.  3,  n.  4;  149,  n.  i;  151, 
n.  i;  172,  n.  4;  197,  n.  3;  2I2, 
n.  i,n.  3;  214/.,  notes;  231,0.2; 
233,  n.  i;  240,  n.  2;  243,  n.  5; 
255.  n-  4;  257.  "•  3;  262,  n.  3; 
264,  n.  4;  275,  n.  2;  278,  n.  3; 
292,  n.  2. 
Fleay,  F.  G.,  234. 

Flecknoe,  Richard,  59, n. i ;  245, 249. 
Fleetwood,   C,   manager  of  Drury 

Lane,  140/.,  153/.,  244,  n.  3. 

Fletcher,  John,  7/.,  61, 113, 163, 167, 

193.  I97>  226,  236,  238,  242,  267, 

295/->  297,  n.  5;   298/.,  309/. 

Floridor,  manager  of  French  players 

in  England,  166. 
Folly's  Anatomy,  300,  n.  2. 
Fond  Husband,  The,  or.  The  Plot- 
ting Sisters,  181. 
Foot,  J.,  68,  n.  3. 

Foote,   Samuel,    13,    51,    200,    216, 
219;   his  plays  and  acting,  136/., 
257;    evades   the  Licensing  Act, 
136,  148;    patentee  and  manager 
of  the  Little  Haymarket,  134,  172. 
Footmen's  gallery,  the,  273. 
Forfeits,  see  Fines. 
Fortune,  the,  theatre,  9,  22,  70,  106, 
108, 143,  204,  206,  209,  21 1  /.,  224, 
237>  248,  302,  n.  3;  303/.,  310. 
Free   list,   the,   5,    106,    107,   n.    i; 

149,  215,  241,  271-276. 
Freeman,  actor,  172. 
French  players  and  dancers  in  Eng- 
land, 9/.,  17,  20,  92,  n.  4;    152, 

165/.,  175. 177.  ":  2;  231- 

Friar  Bacon  and  Friar  Bungay,  25, 
235- 


Fund  for  the  Relief  of  Indigent  Per- 
sons, The,  100,  n.  See  also 
Actors'  Benevolent  Fund. 

Funeral,  The,  or.  Grief  i  la  Mode, 
145. 

Furnivall,  F.  J.,  195,  n.  i. 

Gaedertz,  K.  T.,  311,  n.  i. 

Gainsford,  T.,  loi,  n.  i;  300. 

Galioso,  235,  n.  4. 

Gallants  in  the  theatre,  see  Audi- 
ences. 

Gallery  money,  28.  See  also  Box- 
office. 

Galsworthy,  John,  21. 

Game  of  Chess,  The,  237,  242. 

Garrick,  David,  i,  10,  n.  I;    18,  75, 
n.  2;  94,  103,  111,116/.,  155,  173, 
195,  214,  243;    his  first  London 
appearance,    93,    140,    148;     his 
management     of     Drury     Lane 
Theatre,   18,  35,  61/.,  83,  93/., 
109,  III,  ii5_^.,  140,  151:  —  dis- 
pute  with    Dr.    Young,   38;     re- 
jects Cumberland's  first  play,  65; 
his  disposition  of  manuscripts  of- 
fered,   62;      produces    Johnson's 
Irene,  42;    relations   with   Smol- 
lett, 62,  66;    helps  Jephson,  67; 
Garrick     and     Macklin,     140/.; 
Garrick  and  Mrs.  Clive,  89,  115/.; 
Garrick  and  Mrs.   Siddons,   151; 
Garrick  and  Fielding,  135/.;    his 
supposed    control    of    newspaper 
critics,  270;   rewards  good  acting, 
91;    aids  Actors'  Fund,  99;   man- 
agerial mistakes,  61;    his  Romeo 
and  Juliet  season  (1750),  93,  149; 
—  his  plays,  35,  57,  252/.;    his 
acting,    140;     his    earnings;     93, 
103;    sells  his  share  of  the  Drury 
Lane  patent  to  Sheridan,  141/. 

A  Letter  to  Mr.  Garrick  (1747), 
94,  257. 

Letter  to  David  Garrick,  Esq. 
(i772),_27o,  n.  4._ 
Garrick's  Poetical  Works,  21 4, 

n.  i;  232,  n.  2. 


3^4 


INDEX 


Garzoni,  T.,  296,  n.  6. 

Gatherers,  228.     See  Box-office. 

Gay,  John,  42,  n.  4;  61,  133,  135, 
146,  200,  239/.  See  The  Beggar's 
Opera. 

Gazette  a-la-Mode,  217,  n.  2. 

Genest,  J.,  6,  16,  n.  2;  19,  notes; 
37,  n.;  42,  n- 2;  43.  "•  3;  45.  "•  3; 
51,  n.  i;  55,  n.  4;  6^,  n.  3;  67, 
n.  I;  75,  n.  2;  82,  n.  i;  83,  n.  5; 
84,  n.  i;  86,  n.  4;  88,  notes  2-4; 
91,  n.  I,  n.  2;  97,  n.  4,  n.  5;  100, 
n.;  116,  118,  n.  2;  I2i/.,  n.  3; 
136,  n.  3;  141,  n.  I,  n.  2;  142, 
n.  4;  145,  n.  2;  147,  149,  n.  i; 
152,  n.  4;  153,  n.  2;  173,  185- 
187,  212,  n, i;  213,  n. 2;  225,  n.  4; 

229,  n.  i,n.  2;  232,  n.i;  240,  n.  3, 
n.  5;  262,  n.  3;  269,  278/., 
notes;  281,  n.  5. 

George  I,  54,  178,  181. 

George  II,  180,  n.  2. 

George  III,  181,  185/.,  190,  195. 

George,  Prince  (d.  1709)  147. 

GifFard,  H.,  manager  of  Goodman's 

Fields  Theatre,  138. 
GifFord,  W.,  200,  n.  2;  301,  n.  3. 
Gifts,  to  playwrights,  41,  44,  46;   to 

players,  84,  86,  89/. 
Gilborne,  S.,  71,  96. 
Gildersleeve,  V.  C.,  144,  n.  i;  301/., 

n.  6. 
Gildon,  Charles,  10/.,  30,  32,  37/., 

40,  56,  60/.,  78,  n.  4;    84,  n.  2; 

112,  n.  2;    124,  n.  i;    152,  196, 

230,  246. 

Globe,  the,  theatre,  9,  28,  70,  107/., 
129,  143,  194/-.  204,  206-212, 
218,  224,  237,  242/.,  244,  246, 
251,  280,  298,  303/.,  306,  n.  3; 
312. 

Globe  and  Blackfriars  Share  Papers 
(1635),  70,  207,  210,  n.  3.  See 
also  Halliwell-Phillipps. 

GofFe,  Thomas,  305,  307,  310. 

Godden,  G.  M.,  240,  n.  4. 

Goldsmith,  29,  273. 

Goodman,  C,  80. 


Goodman's  Fields  Theatre,  134,  n.  3; 

138,  140,  148,  243. 
Gosson,    Stephen,    71,    n.    6;     loi, 

n.  i;  247/. 
Government  control  of  the  theatre, 

see     under     Lord     Chamberlain, 

Master  of  the  Revels,  and  Licens- 
ing Act. 
Grabu,  manager  of  French  players 

(1675),  165. 
Gradwell,  T.,  actor,  287. 
Grafton,  Duke  of,  103. 
Granville,  To  Mr.,  on  his  Heroic 

Love,  126,  n.  I. 
Grateful  Servant,  The,  92. 
Graves,  T.  S.,  85,  n.  3;    164,  n.  5; 

262. 
Greene,  Robert,  24,  28,  235. 
Greene,  Thomas,  72,  169,  280. 
Greene's  Tu  Quoque,  280. 
Greenstreet,  J.,  28,  n.  2;    46,  n.  I; 

72,  n.  i;  207,  n.  4;  208,  n.  2;  218, 

n.  2. 
Greg,  W.  W.,  22,  n.  2;    105,  211, 

n.  2;    229,  n.  3;    234.    See  also 

Henslowe. 
Grief  a.  la  Mode,  15,  n. 
Grindall,  Archbishop,  260. 
Groundlings,  223,  227,  233,  250. 
Guilpin,  E.,  209,  n,  i. 
Gull's  Horn  Book,  The,  228,  230, 

248,  264,  295,  n.  6;  298,  n.  6;  300. 
Gunnell,  Richard,  27,  n.  3. 
Gustavus  Vasa,  53. 
Gwynn,  Nell,  25,  92/.,  170/.,  179/., 

219,  221,  282/. 

Habington,  W.,  188,  308. 

Half-price,  see  under  Box-office. 

Half-price  riots,  232/.  See  also 
Audiences. 

Halifax,  Lord,  65/.,  89,  197. 

Hall,  Alice,  actress,  288. 

Halliwell-Phillipps,  J.  O.,  27,  n.  3; 
28,  n.  l;  47,  n.  2;  70,  n.  4;  78, 
n.  I;  108,  n.  2;  I2I,  n.  2;  129, 
n.  2;  154,  n.  5;  196,  n.  I;  198, 
n.  2;    204,  n.  1,  n.  2;    205,  n.  3; 


INDEX 


3'^S 


206,  n.  I;    207,  n.  4;    208,  n.  3; 
210,  n.  3;    218,  n.  2;    234,  n.  5; 
245,  n.  i;    250,  n.  4;    260,  n.  i; 
277,  n.  i;  301/.,  n.  6;   311,  n.  3, 
n.  4. 
Hamilton,  G.,  12,  n.  3. 
Hamilton,  Mrs.,  98,  118. 
Hamlet,  22,  71,  86,  150,  n.  2;    221, 

255,  269. 
Hampton   Court,   performances   at, 
176,     ijSff.,     184;      History    of 
Hampton  Court  Palace,  see  under 
Law. 
Hancock,  actor,  287. 
Handsome    Housemaid,    The,     or, 

Piety  in  Pattens,  13,  172. 
Hannibal,  40. 
Harley,  G.  D.,  151,  n.  3. 
Harris,  H.,  92. 
Harris,  J.,  57. 
Harris,  T.,  68,  133,  155,  256,  270; 

T.  Harris  Dissected,  270,  n.  i. 
Harrison's  England,  47,  n.  4. 
Hart,  Charles,  52,  78,  96/.,  122,  124, 
287,     290/.;      deputy     manager 
under  Killigrew,  76,  n.  2;    109/. 
Haslewood,  J.,  217,  n.  2. 
Hassler,  K.  D.,  230,  n.  i. 
Haughton,  William,  24. 
Haughton,  Dr.  T.,  293. 
Havard,  W.,  48,  n.  4. 
Haymarket,  the,  theatre,  — 

Vanbrugh's,  127,  134,  197;  its 
stock,  255,  279;  occupied  by 
Colley  Cibber  and  the  Drury 
Lane  rebels,  127;  home  of 
Italian  opera,  127,  130/.;  finan- 
cial statistics,  126,  213/. 
The  Little  Theatre  in  the  Hay,  13, 
52,^  134/-,  140/.,  231;  Field- 
ing's management,  134^-; 
Foote's,  136/.,  172,  200,  216; 
the  Colmans',  137,  151;  Theo- 
philus  Gibber's,  138/.,  148. 
The    Haymarket    Opera    House, 

134,  I97>  214. 
Hayns,  Jo,  10,  76,  n.  2;    no,  112, 
167,  191,  283,  292. 


Hazlitt,  W.  C,  2°y  n-  i;    47.  "•  3; 
lOI,  n.   i;    163,  n.  3;    219,  n.   l; 
223,  n.  i;    276,  n.  2;    277,  n.  i; 
297,  n.  6;  300,  n.  i. 
Heart-break  House,  20,  n.  2. 
Hector  of  Germany,  216, 
Hemings,  John,  business  manager  of 
Shakspere's  company,  73,   108/., 
132,  154,  I59>  162,  168,  234;    as 
actor-sharer,  71;    housekeeper  at 
the   Globe    and    the    Blackfriars, 
28,  108,  196. 
Henderson,  J.,  82,  86,  137,  151. 
Henrietta  Maria,  Queen,  156,  163. 
Henry  V,  Aaron  Hill's  adaptation, 

47;   Orrery's,  163,  176. 
Henry  VII,  158. 
j  Henry  VIII,  156/.,  200. 
J  Henry  VIII  (Shakspere's),  298,  304. 
Henry,  Prince  (son  of  James  I),  184, 

200. 
Henslowe,  Philip,  Diary  and  Papers 
(see  a/so  Greg),  22 jf.,  27  and 
notes,  73,  n.  2;  74,  n.;  75,  n.  4; 
93,  n.  i;  96,  n.  3;  108,  n.  3;  115, 
121,  144,  n.  i;  150,  160,  n.  4; 
165,  n.  i;  188/.,  198,  n.  3;  204, 
n.  i;  205,  n.  3;  206,  207,  n.  I; 
208,  209,  n.  2;  211,  216,  218,  230, 
272,  281,  n.  i;  302,  n.  3,  304,  305, 
n.  2,  306;  significance  of  the 
Henslowe  documents,  22,  70,  75, 
106/.,  234_^.;  his  knowledge  of 
theatrical  affairs,  106;  banker  of 
the  Bankside,  70,  106/.;  pawn- 
broker, 107;  Henslowe  and  the 
theatre  "trust,"  105/.;  on  hire- 
lings and  actor-sharers,  27,  71, 
notes  5-7;  his  companies,  ex- 
penditures of,  24,  190,  247,  254, 
249-255.  See  also  under  Box- 
office,  Repertory,  Costumes,  and 
Properties. 
Heraclius,  46,  in. 
Herbert,  —  Mr.  Herbert's  Company 

of  Players,  277. 
Herbert,  Sir  Henry,  Master  of  the 
Revels,  154,  166,  188,  271/.,  289; 


326 


INDEX 


his  methods  and  career  in  office, 
\2\ff.,    198;     his    benefits,    242, 
306/.,  n.  3;    312.    See  also  under 
Malone  and  J.  Q.  Adams. 
Heroic  Drama,  8. 
Hesse,  Prince  of,  173. 
Heywood,  John,  2co. 
Heywood,  Thomas,   50,   and   n.  3; 
51,  169,  200,  250;   his  plays,  7/., 
23;   his  acting  career,  27,  71;   his 
Apology    for    Actors,    loi,    102, 
n.  I. 
High  Life  below  Stairs,  252/. 
Highmore,   J.,    manager   of   Drury 
Lane,   138/.,   193/.,  279;    Theo- 
philus    Gibber's    Letter    to   John 
Highmore,  142,  n.  4. 
Hill,  Aaron,  39,  47. 
Hill,  G.  B.,  87,  n.  2. 
Hillebrand,  H.  N.,  309,  n.  i, 
Hipwell,  D.,  296/.,  n.  6. 
Hirelings,  see  Dramatic  Companies. 
Historia     Histrionica,     see     James 

Wright. 
Historical  and  Literary  Curiosities, 

154,  n.  I. 
Histrio-Mastix,  the  play,  169,  276. 
Histrio-Mastix  (William  Prynne's), 

see  Prynne. 
Hoare,  Prince,  48,  n.  3. 
Hog  hath  lost  his  Pearl,  The,  25, 

216,  263,  272. 
Hogarth,  264. 
Holland's  Leaguer,  237. 
Home,  John,  61. 

Hope,  the,  theatre,  9,  n.,  22,  70,  106, 
204,  207,  215,  223,  247,  280,  298, 
302,  n.  3;  304/.,  311. 
Hospital  and  Parish  of  St.  Giles  in 

the  Fields,  The,  277. 
House  charges,  see  Theatrical  Fi- 
nance. 
Housekeepers,  22^  203,  2o5jf.,  244, 
277;  their  functions  limited,  70, 
105;  their  relations  with  actor- 
sharers  and  companies,  28,  75, 
105-109.  See  also  Actor-sharers, 
Henslowe,  etc. 


Howard,   Sir  Robert,   8,  36,   n.   i; 

46,  196. 
Hughes,  C,  311,  n.  i. 
Hughson,  D.,  143,  n.  3, 
Hull,  T.,  98. 
Humorous    Lieutenant,    The,    167, 

238. 
Hutton,  H.,  300,  n.  2. 

If  it  be  not  Good,  the  Devil's  in  it, 
26. 

Inchbald,  Mrs.,  56,  68. 

Indian  kings,  the  four,  at  the  Hay- 
market,  279. 

Indian  Queen,  The,  164,  289. 

Influenza,  early  epidemics  of,  effect 
on  the  theatres,  142. 

Inns  of  Court,  the,  Masque  of  (1633), 
7,  160. 

Iphigenia,  152. 

Ireland,  theatricals  in,  136,  147,  173, 
182.  See  also  Dublin,  Cork,  and 
Limerick. 

Irene,  42. 

Iron  Chest,  The,  116. 

Island  Princess,  The,  221,  n.  i. 

Italian  Motions,  see  Puppet-shows. 

Italian  Opera,  see  Opera. 

Italian  singers,  dancers,  and  play- 
ers, 10/.,  17,  20,  161. 

James  I,  92,  n.  4;    122,  178,  195; 

his  patronage  of  the  drama,  i^gff-, 

174/.,  200. 
James  II,  81,  146,  174/.,  177;    his 

patronage  of  the  drama,  167 J/". 
Jane  Shore,  173,  232. 
Jealous  Bridegroom,  The,  38. 
Jephson,  Robert,  67. 
Jests  to  Make  You  Merry,  233,  296, 

n.  3. 
Jew  of  Malta,  The,  235,  249,  n.  3; 

265. 
Jigs,  24/.,  225,  228,  236,  305. 
John  Bull,  137. 
Johnson,  Samuel,  53,  n.  2;   55,  n.  3; 

67,  n.  I;  281;  on  Mrs.  Abington's 

benefit,  87/.;  his  profits  on  Irene. 


INDEX 


327 


Jolly,  G.,  122. 
Jones,  Sir  H.  A.,  21. 
Jonson,  II,  56,  191,  223,  230,  234, 
242,  260/.,  278,  280,  297,  299, 
303;  writes  plays  for  Shakspere's 
company,  22/.;  his  popularity, 
23;  his  folio,  50;  his  plays  in  the 
Restoration,  113;  his  masques, 
169,  178,  184,  200,  n.  3;  his  court 
pensions  and  city  posts,  200;  re- 
ceipts from  his  plays,  his  share, 
and  other  income,  23,  25,  27^., 
and  notes;  his  Conversations 
with  Drummond,  23,  n.;  his 
difficulties  with  the  authorities, 
143/.;  on  Elizabethan  stage  fit- 
tings, 247;  his  relations  with 
Brome,  96. 

Jordan,  Mrs.,  82,  83,  n.  i;   194,  n.  2. 

Jovial  Crew,  The,  29,  189,  n.  2. 

JuHus  Caesar,  197. 

Kean,  Edmund,  196. 

Keen,  actor,  266. 

Kemble,  John,  186,  256. 

Kemp,  William,  27,  n.  3,  74,  150, 
241,  280/.;  Kemp's  Nine  Days' 
Wonder,  281,  n.  3. 

Kiechel,  Samuel,  die  Reisen  des,  230. 

Killigrew,  Charles,  198,  291. 

Killigrew,  Thomas,  8/.,  32,  124,  161, 
164,  177,  n.  2;  196,  198,  289; 
patentee  and  manager  of  the 
King's  Men,  Drury  Lane  Theatre, 
33,  76,  ii3/->  122/.,  281;  his 
difficulties,  109/.,  123,  290;  the 
king's  jester,  109,  288/.;  his 
views  on  the  crudeness  of  the 
EHzabethan  stage,  212,  245/.; 
his  company,  30^.,  96,  113,  144, 
251/.,  290/.,  293/.,  —  absorbed 
by  D'Avenant's  company  (1682), 
123/. 

King  and  No  King,  A,  197. 

King  and  Queen's  young  Company, 
the  (1639),  236. 

King  Cambyses,  195. 

King  John,  152. 


King  Lear,  153,  235. 

King,  T.,  88. 

King's  Men,  the,  see  Shakspere's  com- 
pany and  Killigrew's  company. 

King's  Theatre,  the,  see  Drury  Lane 
Theatre. 

Knack  to  Know  a  Knave,  with 
Kemp's  Applauded  Merriments, 
281. 

Knapton,  J.,  266. 

Knepp,  Mrs.,  164,  171,  288. 

Kyd,  Thomas,  235. 

Kynaston,  E.,  97,  103,  124,  171, 
n.  I;  287,  290. 

Lacy,  James,  Garrick's  partner,  18, 

99.  HI- 
Lacy,  John,  57,  no,  167,  283,  n.  i; 

287, 
Lacy,  Mrs.,  292. 
Ladies'  Last  Stake,  The,  118. 
Lady    Elizabeth's    Men,     the,    see 

Princess  Elizabeth. 
Lamb,  Charles,  274/. 
Lambarde,  W.,  223,  303/. 
Land  values,  Elizabethan,  209. 
Laneman,  H.,  manager  of  the  Cur- 
tain, 153. 
Langley,  P.,  owner  of  the  Swan,  107, 

205,  208,  253. 
Lanthorn    and    Candle-Light,    296, 

n.  3. 
Laureate,  The,  243. 
Law,  E.,  169,  n.  i,  n.  4;    178,  n.  2; 

180,  n.  2;    184,  n.  i;   203,  n.  3. 
Lawrence,  W,  J.,  11,  n.  3;   92,  n.  4; 
152,  n.  2;    161,  165,  n.  4;    175, 
n,  3;    177,  n.  2;    204,  n.  i;    225, 
n.  I;    230,  n.  2;    261/.,  265,  266, 
n.  2;    278,  n.  2;    298,  302,  n.  3, 
307,  n.  4. 
Laws  of  Poetry,  The,  see  Gildon. 
Lee,  Nathaniel,  3off.,  36,  40,  48/., 

57>  185. 
Lee,  Sir  S.,  121,  n.  2;   188,  n.  2. 
Lee,  Tony,  283. 

Legitimate  Drama  versus  show  and 
spectacle,  6-21. 


328 


INDEX 


Leicester,  Earl  of,  187;    Leicester's 

Men,  164,  187. 
Lenox,  Duke  of,  302,  n.  3. 
Lent,  acting  during,  81,   147,  154, 

166,  216. 
Lethe,  86. 
Letting  of  Humour's  Blood  in  the 

Head  Vein,  The,  295,  n.  8. 
Lewis,  Monk,  19,  240. 
Lewis,  W.  T.,  86. 
Licenses,  players',  187;   stealing  of, 

150;   fees,  24,  198. 
Licensing  Act  of  1737,  53,  135,  140, 

146,  199,  227,  n.  3;    devices  used 

to  evade  the  act,  136,  148/. 
Lillo,  George,  43,  135,  240. 
Limerick,  actors  in,  95. 
Lincoln's   Inn   Fields  Theatre,    16, 

32/-,  45>   52,  61/.,  79,   81,  91, 

112/.,  132/.,  144,  152,  165,  172, 

196,  213/.,  238,  240,  255,  292. 
Lintott,  B.,  266. 
Lockier,  Dean,  39. 
London,    its    attitude    toward    the 

theatres,  183,  189,  259,  265,  276. 

See  also  Puritan  opposition. 
London  city  pageants,  183,  200. 
London  Journal,  The,  48,  n.  5. 
London    Merchant,   The,    or,   The 

History  of  George  Barnwell,  240. 
London  Spy,  The,  217,  227,  n.  3. 
Long,  Mrs.,  92. 
Lorrain,  Duke  of,  180. 
Losh,  P.,  309,  n.  2. 
Love  and  a  Bottle,  10. 
Love  and  Honour,  12,  n.  i. 
Love  for  Love,  33,  113,  238. 
Love  in  a  Riddle,  145. 
Love  in  Several  Masques,  66. 
Loveday,  T.,  actor,  287. 
Love's  Contrivance,  60,  n.  2. 
Love's  Kingdom,  246,  n.  i. 
Love's  Labour's  Lost,  188. 
Love's  Mistress,  7. 
Lowe,  R.  W.,  14,  n.  i;    32  n,;    36, 

n.  4;  60,  n.  I;  78,  n.  3;  79,  notes; 

82,  n.  3;    85,  n.  3;    88,  n.  i;    89, 

n.  2;  93,  n.  i;  96,  n.  5;  97,  n.  3, 


n.  5;  98,  n.  i,  109,  notes;  no, 
113/.,  and  notes;  121/.,  n.  3; 
123,  124,  n.  3;  126,  n.  i;  133, 
n.  4;  139,  n.;  144,  n.  2,  n.  3;  163, 
n.  4;  176,  n.  2;  179,  n.  5;  180, 
n.  I;  193,  n.  i;  196,  n.  2;  212, 
n.  I;  213,  n.  2;  229,  n.  i;  238, 
n.  2;  251,  n.  3;  261,  n.  2;  269, 
292,  n.  2;  on  Elizabethan  stage 
fittings,  248.  See  also  CoUey 
Cibber,  Apology. 

Lowin,  John,  280. 

Loyal  Brother,  The,  55. 

Luttrell,  N.,  265,  n.  i. 

Lyly,  John,  303. 

McAfee,  H.,  96,  n.  2;  iii,n.  i;  164, 
n.  3;  167,  n.  2;  176,  n.  2;  227, 
n.  4;  230,  n.  7;  243,  n.  i.  See 
also  under  Pepys. 

Macaulay,  G.  C,  53,  n.  2. 

Macbeth,  in/.,  173,  255,  262. 

McKerrow,  R.  B.,  188,  n.  4;  228, 
n.  3;   248,  n.  2. 

Macklin,  Charles,  38,  57,  86,  93, 
140/.,  145,  150,  186,  192. 

Macklin,  Miss,  118. 

Macklin,  Mrs.,  93. 

Macready,  W.  C.,  90,  n.  i. 

Mad  Lover,  The,  298,  n.  8. 

Mad  World,  A,  my  Masters,  259, 
n.  i;  309. 

Magnetic  Lady,  The,  278,  297,  n.  4; 

299,  308. 

Maid  of  the  Mountain,  The,  240, 

n.  5. 
Maid's  Last  Prayer,  The,  41. 
Malcontent,   The,   280,   298,   n.   7; 

300,  n.  2;   301,  302,  n.  3;   304. 
Malone,  E.,  22,  n.  i;   27,  n.  3;    30, 

32,  n.;  41/.;  44,  50,  n.  5;  51,  54, 
n.  I,  n.  2;   55,  n.  3;  67,  n.  4;  73. 

n-  i;  75.  n-  5;  77.  "•  i;  7^.  79. 
n.  i;  108,  n.  3;  I2i/.,  n.  3;  122, 
n.  2;  150,  n.  4;  154,  162,  n.  i, 
n.  2;  163,  n.  3;  166,  n.  2;  169, 
n.3;  188,  n.  6;  I98,n.3,n.4;  205, 
n.  2;    208,  n.  2;    213,  n.  2;    218, 


INDEX 


329 


222,236,11.2;  237,  n.  i,n.  2;  242, 
244,245,11.1;  260,  n.  3;  264,11.1; 
265/.,  272,  n.  i;  281,  n.  2;  295- 
310  and  notes;  on  Elizabethan 
playhouses  and  stage  costume, 
203,  246/. 

Malone  Society  Collections,  174, 
n.  2;  189,  n.  i;  205,  n.  5,  210, 
n.  I. 

Management,  a  Comedy,  48,  n.  5; 
115,  120,  189,283. 

Managers,  9/.,  47,  S^ff.,  105-155; 
chronological  summary  of  man- 
agers and  management,  1 21-144; 
Elizabethan,  see  under  Dramatic 
companies,  Hemings,d«^  Nathan- 
iel Field;  post-Restoration:  — 
beginnings  of  modern  functions 
of  managers,  32/.,  70;  their 
deputies,  62,  76,  n.  2;  109,  123, 
130,  138,  140;  unsuccessful  finan- 
cially, 34,  79,  123;  attempts  to 
cut  salaries,  79/.,  128;  disputes 
and  disciplinary  troubles  with 
players,  37,  n.  I ;  86,89,95,109/., 
117/.,  128/.,  140;  gifts  and 
pensions  to  players,  see  Players 
and  Actors'  Benevolent  Fund; 
managerial  difficulties  in  general, 
—  fires,  riots,  etc.,  64/.,  105,  107, 
120,  1 42-1 50;  managerial  mis- 
takes, 61,  135;  managerial  agree- 
ments, see  under  theatre  "trusts"; 
relations  with  playwrights,  see 
Playwrights;  with  the  public, 
see  Audiences.  See  also  individual 
managers,  D'Avenant,  Killigrew, 
Colley  Cibber,  etc. 

Manchester,  Duke  of,  91,  n.  3. 

Mangora,  King  of  the  Timbusians, 

47- 
Manly,  Mrs.,  56. 
Mantzius,  K.,  229,  n.  3;   248. 
Mariamne,  61. 
Marlborough,  Duke  and  Duchess  of, 

185,  187. 
Marlowe,  26,  235. 
Marmion,  S.,  230,  237. 


Marprelate  Controversy,  the,  295, 

303,  n-  3- 
Marriage  a  la  Mode,  197. 
Marriage -Hater     Matched,     The, 

282. 
Marshall,  Mrs.,  171,  288. 
Marston,  28,   143,  189,  n.  2;    298, 

Martin's  Month's  Mind,  295,  303. 
Martinus  Scriblerus,  14,  n.  4;  274. 
Marvell,  Andrew,  161. 
Mary,  Queen,  184/. 
Mascella,  153. 
Masefield,  John,  21. 
Masque  of  Augurs,  The,  169. 
Masque  of  Christmas,  The,  280. 
Masques  at  court,  7,  92,  n.  4;    156, 

160,  184/.,  246,  249. 
Massinger,  24,  28,   166,   189,  n.  2; 

236,  298,  n.  10. 
Massye,  C,  27,  n.  3;  75. 
Mattocks,  Mrs.,  116. 
Mayne,  J.,  230,  n.  5;  308. 
Mayor  of  Queenborough,    The,    50, 

n.  I;  296,  n,  4. 
Meade,  J.,  207. 
Melton,  J.,  71,  n.  6. 
Memorial  of  Jane  Rogers,  81,  n.  i. 
Merope,  39. 
Michaelmas  Term,  309, 
Middle  Temple,   the,   benchers   of, 

102/. 
Middlesex  County  Records,  277. 
Middleton,  22,  25,  50,  n.  i;    55,  200, 

234,  237,  242,  259,  n.  i;   296,  300, 

n.  2;  301,  305,  309. 
Midsummer  Night's  Dream,  A,  250, 

n.  5;  260,  n.  4. 
Mildmay,  Sir  H.,  299,  302,  304,  308, 

310. 
Miller,  Joe,  264. 
Mills,  J.,  84,  266. 
Milton,  11,38,93,  193. 
Mithridates,  40,  185. 
Mohun,  M.,  no,  122,  287,  290/. 
Moliere,  46. 
Monk,  General,  8,  122. 
Monmouth,  Duke  of,  175,  184. 


33<^ 


INDEX 


Monopoly,  see  Theatrical  monopoly. 

Montagu,  Lady  M.  W.,  66. 

Montague,  Lord,  253,  n.  3. 

Moore,  Sir  T.,  47. 

More,  Mrs.  H.,  56. 

More,  Sir  W.,  209/. 

Morel,  L.  A.,  53,  n.  2;  67,  n.  3. 

Morton,  T.,  68. 

Moryson,  F.,  311. 

Mossop,  H.,  III/. 

Mother    Shipton's    Tragical    End, 

12. 
Motteux,  P.  A.,  221,  n.  i. 
Mottley,  181. 
Mountford,  W.,  282. 
Mourning  Bride,  The,  23,  238. 
Moving  pictures,  the,  5,  n,  283. 
Mulcaster,  R.,  158. 
Munday,  Anthony,  26,  200. 
Murphy,  A.,  68,  93,  n.  6;   102,  149, 

n.  3. 
Murray,  J.  T.,  27,  n.  3;    71,  n.  7; 

75,  n.  i;    107,  n.  2;    108,  n.   i; 

121,  142,  n.  2;    162,  n.  2;    188, 

n.  I,  n.  5;    189,  n.  6;    205,  n.  2; 

277,  n.  2;  278,  n.  4;  309,  n.  i. 
Musical  comedy,  21,  240. 

Nashe,  143,  168,  n.  2,  188,  248,  303, 

n.  4. 
Nason,  A.  H.,  29,  n.  i. 
Newcastle,  Duke  of,  46,  60,  n.  2. 
New  Inn,  The,  191. 
New  Way  to  Pay  Old  Debts,  A,  189, 

n.  2, 
News  from  Hell,  216,  n.   8;    233, 

n.  2;  296,  n.  3. 
News  from  the  Stage,  300,  n.  i. 
Nichols,  J.,  174,  n.  2;    175,  n.  5; 

195,  n.  2;  253,  n.  3;  306,  n.  i. 
Nicholson,  W.,  79,  n.  2. 
Nokes,  J.,  103,  282. 
Non-Juror,  The,  44,  54,  239. 
Nop,  Mrs.,  see  Mrs.  Knepp. 
No  Pued  Esser,  167. 
Norris,  H.,  266. 
Northbrooke,  J.,  248,  260. 
Northern  Lass,  The,  189,  n.  2. 


Nottingham,  Earl  of,  188.    See  also 

under  Admiral's  Men. 
"Novelty"  on  the  stage,  9,  87,  152, 

234- 

Oberon,  184. 

Observations  on  the  Statement  of 
Differences,  see  Statement  of 
Differences. 

CEdipus,  31. 

O'Keeffe,  J.,  13,  38/.,  43/.,  48,  n.  3, 
n.  5;  51/-.  67/.,  83,  n.  1;  84, 
n.  i;  95,  III,  182,  192,  201,  221, 
252/.,  267. 

Old  Bachelor,  The,  54,  n.  3;   264. 

Old  Fortunatus,  25. 

Old  Price  Riots,  the  (1809),  147. 
See  also  Audiences. 

Oldfield,  Mrs.,  82,  84,  90,  92/.,  127, 
129,  138,  192,  241,  266. 

Oldys,  W.,  22. 

Opera,  Italian,  in  competition  with 
the  drama,  9,  14;  at  the  Hay- 
market,  126/.,  130/.;  unsuccess- 
ful financially,  130/.,  243;  con- 
trolled by  the  managers  of  Drury 
Lane  and  Covent  Garden,  155. 

Orange  girls,  2i(^ff.,  262. 

Oratorios,  147,  n.  2;  216. 

Ordish,  T.  F.,  304. 

Orleans,  Duchess  of,  175. 

Oroonoko,  44,  n.  2;  91. 

Orphan,  The,  40. 

Orrery,  Earl  of,  46,  163,  176. 

Othello,  52,  85,  173,  186,  193,  216. 

Otto,  Landgrave  of  Hesse-Cassel, 
308. 

Otway,  17,  30,  36/.,  40/.,  52,  57, 

145.  238. 
Oulton,  W.  C,  13,  n.  3;    39,  n.  i; 

48,  n.  5;    52,  n.  i;    53,  59,  n.  2; 

86,  n.  4;   93,  n.  3;   95,  n.  i;    100, 

n.;    137,  n.  i;   I46,  n.  4;    153,  172, 

"•  3;    195.  n-  3;    214,  n.  I,  n.  2; 

256. 
Overbury,  Sir  Thomas,  loi,  297. 
Oxford    University,    dramatics    at, 

162,  175/.,  226,  277,  293/. 


INDEX 


33^ 


Palamon  and  Arcite,  195. 
Palmer,  John,  97. 

Pantomimes  and  spectacles,  9,  16- 
",    115.    U3,   ^3^1-y   239,    256. 
See  also  under  Colley  Gibber  and 
John  Rich. 
Papal  Tyranny,  152. 
Pappe  with  an  Hatchet,  303,  309. 
Paradise  Lost,  n,  38,  50. 
Paris  Garden,  see  the  Bear  Garden. 
Parrot,  H.,  301,  n.  2. 
Parson's  Wedding,  The,  281. 
Parton,  J.,  277. 
Pasquin,  44,  135,  240,  281. 
Passes,  see  Free  list. 
Passion  of  our  Lord,  The,  and  the 

Creation  of  the  World,  156. 
Patents,  of  the  theatres  royal,  9,  76/., 
122,  123,  n.  I;    124/.,  129,  I3ijf., 
136-141,  142,  n.  I;   148,213. 
Patronage,  see  the  Court   and   the 

theatres. 
Peake,  R.  B.,  137,  n.  2. 
Pearce,  C.  E.,  42,  n.  4;    118,  n.  i; 

240,  n.  I. 
Pembroke,  Earl  of,  159;  Pembroke's 

Men,  107. 
Pensions,  actors',  see  Actors'  Benev- 
olent Fund.   See  also  Playwrights. 
Pepys,  81,  92,  96,  102,  III,  121/., 
n.  3;    164,  167,  180/.,  212,  214, 
220,  1^6 ff.,  230,  242,  245/.,  252, 
255,  261.    See  also  under  McAfee. 
Percival,  M.,  172,  n.  2. 
Percy  Anecdotes,  97,  n.  4;   175,  n.  2; 

214,  n.  I;  240,  n.  5. 
Peregrine  Pickle,  66. 
Performances,  number  of  per  year, 

in  the  London  theatres,  244. 
Performing  animals  on  the  stage,  9, 

16. 
Philaster,  193. 

Philip  Julius,  Duke  of  Stettin,  308. 
Phillippo  and  Hyppolito,  235,  n.  4. 
Phillipps,  Augustine,  96,  168. 
Phillipps,  Stephen,  21. 
Phoenix,  the,  theatre,  see  the  Cock- 
pit. 


Pierce  Penniless,  248. 

Piety  in  Pattens,  see  The  Handsome 

Housemaid. 
Pinero,  Sir  A.  W.,  21. 
Pinkethman,  W.,  88,  268. 
Pit,  the,  227/. 
Pizarro,  240. 
Plague,      the,     forces     closing     of 

theatres,   142/.,  162/.,  189,  207, 

n-  3;  259.  305.  n-  4- 
Plain  Dealer,  The,  12,  n.  i. 
Platter,  T.,  190/.,  301,  n.  5. 
Playbills,   52,  n.  3;    84,  n.   i;    86, 
n.  5;   98,  n.  3;    Ii8,  182,  183  and 
n.  I,  n.  3;    193,  215,  n.  2;    216, 
n.  4;    232,  244,  260/.,  265,  271, 
n.  2. 
Playbooks,    sold    in    the    theatres, 
218/.;    Elizabethan,  —  price  and 
circulation   of,   49/.,   260;     post- 
Restoration,  50,  51,  n.  2;    54,  60, 
220. 
Players,  70-104;    livery  and  other 
rights  and  immunities  as  grooms 
of  the  chamber,  168-172,  187, 
287/.   {see  also  the  Court  and 
the  theatres);  their  social  status, 
loiff.;  supervise  amateur  theat- 
ricals, 183^.;    apprentice  fees, 
96;     relations    with    managers, 
see  Managers;  with  playwrights, 
see  Playwrights.    See  also  under 
Strolling     players.     Charitable 
contributions,  Star  System,  and 
Actresses. 
Elizabethan,  —  see  Dramatic  com- 
panies and  Actor-sharers. 
Post-Restoration,  —  their   shares, 
23,  78,  124;    their  earnings  in 
general:  —  exaggerated   reports 
of,  78,  82,  94,  loi;   stars,  78_^., 
84,  91-95;  young  players,  80/.; 
salaries,  giff-,  96,   117,  —  paid 
irregularly,  79-83;  benefits  their 
chief  source  of  income,  81-89, 
93/-,  97>   "2,  128,   181/.,  267; 
gifts  from  playgoers  and  man- 
agers,   solicitation    of,   45,    84, 


33'^ 


INDEX 


pensions,    see    Actors' 
Benevolent  Fund. 
Playhouse  to  be  Let,  The,  26. 
Playhouses,  the,  202-283.   ^^^  under 

Theatres  and  Theatrical. 
Plays,  delays  in  production  of,  59; 
stealing  and  pirating  of,  49^.,  1 50, 
^53)     ^55    (-^^^    ^^^°    Copyright, 
under    Playwrights);     alterations 
by  managers,   59  and  n.   i;    63; 
glut  of  new  plays  (1690),  60;   re- 
jected   plays    successful,   61    {see 
managerial  mistakes,  under  Man- 
agers);   written  for  actors'  bene- 
fits, 86/.;    Drury  Lane  plays  ac- 
cepted  only    by   consent   of   the 
three  managers  during  the  Cibber 
regime,   64;    selling  price  of  old 
plays   (Elizabethan),   255;    stock 
plays   divided   between   Restora- 
tion   companies,    52,    151,    236; 
successful    plays     acted    by    all 
the  houses,    151/.;     runs   of,   see 
Repertory;  payment  for,  see  Play- 
wrights;  suppression  of,  see  Cen- 
sorship, Lord  Chamberlain,  Master 
of  the  Revels.    {Individual  plays 
are  indexed  under  their  respective 
titles.) 
Playwrights,  22-69;    relations  with 
managers,     56,     58-64,     66_^.; 
with  players  and  dramatic  com- 
panies, 86,  29^.  {see  also  under 
these  headings);    with  publish- 
ers:  copyrights,  4I,  49-54,  59; 
poverty  and  prosperity  of,  23/., 
28/.;    their  privilege  of  casting 
parts,   38;     troubles    with    the 
authorities,  143/.;   competition 
with     amateurs,     45-49,     190; 
dedications,     41,     54;      actor- 
playwrights,     56/.      See     also 
Charitable  contributions. 
Elizabethan,  —  payments  to,  doc- 
uments   concerning,    22;     flat 
rates  for  new  plays,  23,  28/.; 
for  revisions,  25;    for  prologues 
and    epilogues,    25;     for    jigs, 


24_^.;  their  benefits,  25/.,  30; 
bonuses,  25/.;  ,as  actor-sharers, 
27;  as  housekeepers,  28;  sal- 
aries, 29/. 
Post-Restoration,  —  meagre  earn- 
ings of,  30,  37/.,  40,  49;  im- 
provement in  the  eighteenth 
century,  39/.,  68;  as  sharers, 
31-35;  salaries,  30/.,  36;  bene- 
fits their  chief  source  of  income, 

25/-,  3i/m  35/-.  37/-,  42/-, 
52^.,  68/.;  earnings  from 
prologues  and  epilogues,  55; 
presents  from  playgoers,  solici- 
tation of,  41,  44/.;  women 
dramatists,  56. 

Pocahontas,  see  Thackeray. 

Poetaster,  The,  29,  n.  i;  295,  296, 
n.  1;  305. 

Political  complications,  effect  of, 
on  the  theatres,  2,3,  54,  77,  90>  H5- 

Politician  Reformed,  The,  271,  n.  i. 

Pollock,  Sir  F.,  90,  n.  i. 

Polly,  an  Opera,  146. 

Poor  tax,  players',  see  Charitable 
contributions. 

Pope,  14,  44,  49,  54,  n.  4;  58,  274. 

Porter,  Mrs.,  97,  138. 

Porter,  T.,  238. 

Post  Boy,  The,  266. 

Powell,  G.,  55,  57,  60,  144,  268. 

Press  agents,  4,  280.  See  Theatrical 
advertising. 

Preston,  T.,  195. 

Price,  J.,  163. 

Prior,  36. 

Pritchard,  Mrs.,  38,  85,  232. 

Private  theatres,  122,  224/.,  250, 
297,  301,  n.  3. 

Prologues  and  Epilogues,  9/.,  14, 
25,  36/.,  42,  48,  54/.,  82,  145,  176, 
185,  205,  225,  279;  sold  to  audi- 
ences, 55,  219,  221,  n.;  262; 
serve  for  the  personal  advertising 
of  players,  liiff.  See  also  Play- 
wrights and  Theatrical  adver- 
tising. 

Properties,    Elizabethan,    24,    164, 


INDEX 


333 


247-252,  254;  post-Restoration, 
32,45,  130,  165,251/.,  255/.  See 
also  Costumes  and  Scenes  and 
Scenery. 

Proposal  for  the  Better  Regulation 
of  the  Stage,  A,  16,  58. 

Provincial  drama,  see  Strolling  Play- 
ers. 

Provoked  Husband,  The,  90,  239. 

Provoked  Wife,  The,  45.  'S^- 

Prynne,  W.,7,  50,  92,  n.  4;  156,  160, 
173,  189,  218,  223/.,  247,  297, 
299. 

Psyche,  255. 

Public  Advertiser,  The,  84,  n.  i;  269. 

Public  theatres,  224,  297. 

Puppet-shows,  iijf.,  20,  143. 

Purchasing  power  of  money,  the, 
Elizabethan,  7,  22,  78,  204; 
Restoration,  78,  212,  n.  3. 

Puritan  opposition  to  the  theatre, 
the,  47,  loi,  129,  157,  208/.,  247, 
257,  259/. 

Queensberry,  Duchess  of,  84,  87. 
Queen's  Men  (1583),  168,  187. 
Queen's  Revels  Company  {ca.  1608), 

28. 
Quin,  James,  62,  88,  93,  140,  15°' 

185. 

Raftor,  Miss,  see  Mrs.  Clive. 
Ralph,  J.,  12,  17,  20,  59,  61/.,  85, 

94,  258- 
Randolph,  T.,  301,  n.  2. 
Rates  of  Admission,  see  Box-office. 
Raven's  Almanac,  The,  296,  n.  3. 
Rawlins,  T.,  15,  n. 
Receipts,  of  the  theatres,  see  under 

Box-office,  daily  takings. 
Recruiting  Officer,  The,   202,   264, 

266. 
Red  Bull,  the,  theatre,  9,  71/-,  108, 

III,    123,   184,   205,   207/.,   277, 

280,  305/.,  310;    the  Red  Bull 

company,  72,  122,  293. 
Reflections  of  a  Moral  and  Political 

Tendency     Occasioned     By     the 


Present   State   of  the   two  Rival 
Theatres  in  Drury  Lane  and  Lin- 
coln's   Inn    Fields    (1725?),    I33. 
n.  I. 
Regicide,  The,  66. 
Rehearsal,  The,  39/.,  n.  3. 
Rehearsals,  47,  112,  115/.,  148/- 
Relapse,  The,  45. 
Reliquiae  Wottoniante,  see  under  Sir 

Henry  Wotton. 
Rendle,  P.,  47- 
Rennel,  G.,  133,  n.  i. 
Repertory,    the    Elizabethan,    233- 

237;    the  post-Restoration,   237- 

240. 
Reprisal,  The,  or.  The  Tars  of  Old 

England,  66. 
Reserved  seats,  see  Theatre  tickets. 
Restoration     drama,  —  comedy     of 

manners,    8;     heroic    drama,    8; 

narrower  in  scope  than  the  Eliza- 
bethan drama,  199,  227. 
Return  from  Parnassus,  The,  241, 

280. 
Revels  at  court,  157.    See  also  the 

Court  and  the  theatres. 
Revels,  Master  of  the,  106,  108/., 

122,  154,  168,  190,  198/.,  271/. 

See  also  under  Sir  Henry  Herbert, 

Sir    George    Buc,    and    Edmund 

Tilney. 
Revels,  Office  of  the,  lends  costumes 

and  properties  to  the  professional 

actors,  164/.,  249,  254,  288/.;   Its 

yeoman  and  grooms,  165,  169. 
Revenge,  The,  51. 
Revivals,  of  old  plays,  59/. 
Reyher,  P.,  160,  n.  2;  184,11.2. 
Reynardson,  Dr.,  246,  252. 
Reynolds,  Frederick,  38/.,  48,  n.  3, 

n.   5;    52,  65,  68,  85,  97,   n.  4; 

98,  n.  3;   115,  120,  151,  n.  3;   155, 

181,  186,  189,  193,  n.  2;  256,267, 

273/-,  283. 
Reynolds,  Sir  Joshua,  87/. 
Rhodes,  J.,  122. 
Rice,  J.,  183. 
Rich  Cabinet  Furnished  with  Van- 


334 


INDEX 


ety  of  Excellent  Descriptions,  The, 
300. 

Rich,  Christopher,  54,  132,  192,  214; 
acquires  control  of  the  Drury 
Lane  patent,  34,  124/.;  his 
managerial  methods  and  down- 
fall, 15/.,  57,  61,  114/.,  124-130. 

Rich,  John,  16,62,66,  118,  120,  133, 
139,  141,  213/.;  manager  of 
Lincoln's  Inn  Fields  and  Covent 
Garden,  132/.,  137,  153/-,  213; 
his  acting,  132,  his  pantomimes, 

Richard  II,  156. 

Richard  II,  Shakspere's,  234. 

Richard  III,  148. 

Richmond,  Duke  of,  186. 

Rival  Kings,  The,  82,  283,  n.  i. 

Rivals,  The,  Sheridan's,  35;  D'Ave- 

nant's,  238. 
Roach,  J.,  278,  n.  i,  n.  2. 
Roaring  Girl,  The,  259,  n.  i;    300, 

n.  2;  305. 
Robinson,  Mrs.,  119. 
Rochester,  Earl  of,  46,  1 84. 
Roderick  Random,  62,  66. 
Rogers,  Mrs.    See  Memorial  of  Jane 

Rogers. 
RoUins,  H.  E.,  266,  n.  i. 
Romeo  and  Juliet,  93,  148/.,   152, 

n.  4;   153,  ^3S>  241,  n.  2;  265. 
Rope-dancers,  see  Tricksters. 
Roscius  Anglicanus,  see  Downes. 
Roscius    in    London,    Biographical 

Memoirsof  Betty  (1805),  151,  n.  3. 
Rose,   the,   theatre,  9,  n.;    22,  70, 

106/.,  204,  206,  209,  2i6ff.,  237, 

251,306,312. 
Rowe,  Nicholas,  38,  232. 
Rowlands,  Samuel,  295,  n.  8. 
Rowley,  Samuel,  27,  71. 
Rowley,  William,  27,  241/. 
Royal  Historical  Society,  308,  n,  i. 
Royal  King  and  Loyal  Subject,  166. 
Royal  Slave,  The,  162. 
Runs  of  plays,  see  Repertory. 
Rutter,  Mrs.,  171,  288. 
Ryan,  L.,  88,  181. 


St.  Martin's  Theatre,  199. 

St.  Paul's  Theatre,  9,  n.;  150,  296, 

n-  5;   297,  303,  309. 
Salisbury    Court    Theatre,    9,    n.; 

29>  77,   107,   122,  209,  211,  237, 

250/.,  276,  301,  n.  6;  310. 
Sandford,  S.,  79. 
Satire  upon  the  Poets,  A.,  36. 
Satiromastix,  24,  295,  n.  6,  303. 
Scenes    and    Scenery,    Elizabethan, 

188,  246,  250;    post-Restoration, 

8,  31/-,  47,  152,  174,  213,  217, 
251-256.    See  also  Properties. 

School  of  Abuse,  The,  71,  n.  6. 

Scornful  Lady,  The,  299,  308. 

Scotland,  theatricals  in,  94,  n.  4; 
136,  145,  175,  185,  250. 

Scott,  Sir  Walter,  50,  n.  3. 

Second  and  Third  Blast  of  Retreat 
from  Plays  and  Theatres,  A,  223/. 

Settle,  Elkanah,  200. 

Seven  Deadly  Sins  of  London,  The, 
296,  n.3. 

Seven  Wise  Masters,  The,  254. 

Shadwell,  Charles,  63,  n.  1. 

Shadwell,  Thomas,  34,  41,  200,  225, 
227,  n.  3,  228,  230,  238,  242,  255. 

Shadwell,  Mrs.  Thomas,  34. 

Shakspere,  prosperity  of  the  theatres 
in  his  time,  9;  his  income  and 
financial  resources,  —  22/.,  49; 
as  actor-sharer,  27,  71,  78;  as 
housekeeper,  28,  loi,  196,  207; 
retiring  allowance,  75,  255;  at 
court,  168,  178  {see  also  the 
Court  and  the  theatres  and  Law); 
his  plays:  —  not  written  for  stars, 
73;  Hemings  and  the  First  Folio, 
73;  divided  between  the  houses 
after  the  Restoration,  113/-; 
runs  and  first  performances  of,  in 
his  time,  see  Repertory;  hard 
beset  by  farce  and  pantomime  in 
the  eighteenth  century,  i6ff.; 
the  Malone-Boswell  Variorum  edi- 
tion of,  see  Malone;  adaptations 
of,  152;  general  references  to,  11, 
22,    52,    85/.,   93,    in/.,    148/., 


INDEX 


335 


150,  n.  2;  152/., 173, 186,  188, 193, 
197,  216,  221,  234/.,  241/.,  250, 
n.  5;  255,  260,  n.  4,  262,  265,  269, 
298,  304;   continuity  of  theatrical 
tradition    from    his    time    to    the 
present,  see  Theatrical  tradition; 
his  friends,  96/.;  New  Place,  209; 
Shaksperean    readings    by    great 
actors,  195;   characteristics  of  the 
theatre    in    his    time,    see    under 
Dramatic  companies.  Actor-shar- 
ers,   Housekeepers,    the    Plague, 
Theatre  fires,  Puritan  opposition, 
Players    (benefits),    Playwrights, 
Lord  Chamberlain,  Master  of  the 
Revels,  etc. 
Shakspere's     company     (the     Lord 
Chamberlain's    Men,   the    King's 
Men),  189,  278,  307,  _n.  5;    309; 
its  competitors,  22/.;   its  business 
arrangements   approximate   those 
of  other  companies,  22,  71,  237; 
Hcmings's  services  to,  73;    litiga- 
tion against,  see  Theatrical  litiga- 
tion;    Kemp's   desertion   of,   74, 
150;     friendly   relations   between 
members  of,  97;    its  stock,  255; 
number  of  plays  produced  by,  234; 
its  costumes  and  properties,  246^., 
250^.   {see  Costumes  and  Prop- 
erties);   its  popularity   at  court, 
154,    158/.,    162,    168,    184,   188 
{see  the  Court  and  the  Theatres). 
Shakspere    societies     and    publica- 
tions, —  Shakespeare      Jahrbuch, 
174,   n.   2;    Shakespeare   Society 
Papers,  27,  n.  3;    77,  n.  2;    107, 
n.  2;   198,  n.  i;    209,  n.  3;  237, 
n.  I;    251,  n.  4;    New  Shakspere 
Society  Transactions,   169,   n.   3. 
See  also  under  individual  writers, 
—  Greenstreet,  Mrs.  Stopes,  etc. 
Shanks,  John,   27,   n.  3;    Shanks's 

Ordinary,  281. 
Shares  and  Shareholding,  — 

The  Elizabethan  system,  28,  71, 
108,  121;  statistics  concerning 
proprietary      shares,      206^.; 


changes  before  1642, — 75/.   See 
also  Actor-sharers  and  House- 
keepers. 
Post-Restoration,   31,   n.;     32 jf., 
76/.,     124/.,     202.      See    also 
Theatrical  Finance. 
Shatterel,  E.,  287. 
Shatterel,  R.,  287. 

Shaw,  George  Bernard,  20,  n.  2;  21. 
Sheavyn,  P.,  23,  n.;   loi,  n.  2. 
She's  Eloped,  52,  n.  4. 
She  Stoops  to  Conquer,  273. 
Sheridan,    Richard    Brinsley,    suc- 
ceeds    Garrick    as    manager    of 
Drury  Lane,  19,  63,  117,  142,  151, 
214,    272;     his    spectacular    pro- 
ductions, 19,  240;    his  plays,  35, 
53/-.  63,  141/.,  240;    cooperates 
with   Covent   Garden   and   takes 
over  the  opera,  155. 
Sheridan,  Thomas,  95,  191. 
Sheridan,  Mrs.  Thomas,  42. 
Shiels,  R.,  67,  n.  3. 
Shilling  gallery,  the,  226,  229,  n.  2. 

See  also  under  Box-office. 
Shipherd,  H.  R.,  49,  n.  2. 
Shirley,  28,  92,  226,  236,  301,  n.  3, 

310. 
Short  Treatise  against  Stage  Play- 
ers, A,  276. 
Shuter,  Edward,  85/. 
Sick   Clause,   the,   in   players'   con- 
tracts, 120. 
Siddons,  Mrs.,  88,  90,  103,  151,  186, 

.  192,  195.  256,  265. 
Siege  of  Rhodes,  The,  8,  n. 
Singer,  John,  27,  n.  3;   Singer's  Vol- 
untary, 281. 
Sinkler,  John,  280. 
Sir  Anthony  Love,  42. 
Sir  Barnaby  Whigg,  or.  No  Wit  like 

a  Woman's,  227,  n.  3. 
Sir  Courtly  Nice,  167. 
Sir  Hercules  Buffoon,  283,  n.  i. 
Sir  John  Oldcastle,  25,  188. 
Sir  Martin  Mar-all,  46,  237/. 
Sir  Salomon,  or,  The  Cautious  Cox- 
comb, 238. 


33^ 


INDEX 


Sir  Solomon  Single,  175. 

Sir  Thomas  More,  190. 

Skialetheia,  209,  n.  i. 

Skipwith,  Sir  T.,  127. 

Slater,  M.,  218. 

Sly,  W.,  280. 

Smart,  Kit,  29. 

Smith,  C.  J.,  154,  n.  i. 

Smith,  "Gentleman,"  88. 

Smith,  L.  P.,  263,  n.  4. 

Smith,  R.  J.,  42,  n.  2;  64,  n.  2. 

Smollett,  on  Garrick  and  John  Rich, 
62,  66. 

Solicitation  of  patronage,  see  Play- 
ers and  Playwrights. 

Son-in-Law,  52. 

Southampton,  Earl  of,  188. 

Southerne,  Thomas,  52,  91;  his 
shrewdness  and  financial  success, 
29,  41/.,  44;  his  dedications,  44, 
54;  his  prologues,  49,  54/-?  ^^^ 
copyrights,  49^-;  Pope's  ad- 
dress To  Mr.  Thomas  Southern, 
on  his  Birth-Day,  1742, —  49. 

Spanish  Bawd,  The,  299. 

Spanish  Friar,  The,  or,  The  Double 
Discovery,  40,  266. 

Spanish  Tragedy,  The,  25,  235. 

Spartan  Dame,  The,  51. 

Spectator,  The,  13,  n.  I;  145,266/., 
269. 

Spence,  J.,  36,  n.  3;    39,  n.  3;    89, 

n.  3;  273- 
Spenser,  36. 
Spiller,  J.,  150. 

Springes  for  Woodcocks,  301,  n.  2. 
Squire  of  Alsatia,  The,  230,  238,  242. 
Stage  Beaux,  85,  292,  300,  n.  2.    See 

also  under  Audiences. 
Stage-Beaux   tossed   in    a    Blanket, 

The,  48,  n.  5. 
Staple  of  News,  The,  279,  n.  i. 
Star  system,   the,   begins  with   the 

Restoration,    'joff.;     Dogget    not 

the  first  star,  91/.;    Garrick  as  a 

star,  94;    starring  tours,  94/. 
Statement,    A,    of   the    Differences 

Subsisting   between   the   Proprie- 


tors and  Performers  of  the 
Theatre-Royal,  Covent  Garden, 
and  Observations  on  the  State- 
ment, 37,  n.;    84,  n.  l;    87,  n.  I; 

93>  n-  3;  95.  n.  4;  98,  "•  3;  1°°, 
n.;  105,  119/.,  147,  n.  I;  155, 
n.  3;  216,  n.  4;  244,  n.  3;  256, 
n.  4;  275,  n.  2. 

Steele,  12,  14,  51,  67,  181,  264;  his 
partnership  in  Drury  Lane,  35, 
131/.;  his  finances,  29,  35;  his 
puffing,  35,  131,  268/.;  on  fac- 
tions in  the  theatre,  145.  See  also 
under  Tatler  and  Spectator. 

Stockwood,  J.,  204,  n.  2;  311. 

Stopes,  Mrs.  C.  C,  73,  n.  i;  157, 
n.  I;  162,  n.  2;  170,  n.  I;  183, 
n.  4;  196,  n.  i;  205,  n.  5;  206, 
n.  2. 

Strafford  Letters,  46,  n.  2;  263,  n.  3; 
302,  n.  3. 

Stratagem,  The,  173. 

Strolling  Players,  94,  150,  170,  176, 
259,  n.  2;   260,  278,  293/. 

Subscription,  publication  of  plays 
by,  53,  97.  See  also  Theatrical 
finance. 

Suckling,  Sir  John,  46/.,  190,  299, 
n.  2. 

Sullen  Lovers,  The,  227,  n.  3;   228. 

Sullivan,  M.,  160,  n.  2;  169,  n.  2; 
184,  n.  4;  253,  n.  3. 

Summer's  Last  Will  and  Testament, 
188. 

Summers,  M.,  39/.,  n.  3. 

Swan,  the,  theatre,  9,  71,  107,  204/., 

^  253,  261,  276,307,311/. 

Swift,  226. 

Swiney,  O.,  126/.,  i2gff. 

Syig^j  John  M.,  21. 

Tale   of  a   Tub,   A,   Jonson's,    ii; 

Swift's,  226. 
Tamburlaine,  26,  235. 
Tap-houses    and   other   perquisites, 

218/.,  224. 
Tarlton,    Richard,    281;     Tarlton's 

Jests,  281,  n,  3. 


INDEX 


337 


Tars  of  Old  England,  The,  see  The 
Reprisal. 

Taste  of  the  Town,  The,  see  under 
J.  Ralph. 

Tatham,  J.,  205,  n.  2. 

Tatler,  The,  12,  130/.,  145,  267^. 

Taylor,  John,  the  Water  Poet,  298, 
n.  9;  his  wit  combat  with  Fennor, 
215/-,  230,  247,  260/.,  305,  307; 
his  Watermen's  Suit  concerning 
Players,  311/. 

Taylor,  Joseph,  163,  184,  280. 

Tempest,  The,  255. 

Temple  Beau,  The,  134,  n.  3. 

Thackeray,  3,  13/.,  48,  182,  273. 

Thaler,  A.,  11,  n.  2;  22,  n.  i;  26 
n.  i;  27,  n.  3;  48,  n.  5;  72,  n.  2 
94,  n.  4;  96,  n.  I;  105,  n.  3;  107 
n.  i;  150,  n.  4;  156,  n.  3;  158 
n.  2;  207,  n.  5;  242,  n.  3;  259 
n.  2;  264,  n.  5;  293,  notes;  305 
n.  3. 

Theatre,  The,  a  periodical,  132,  n.  i. 

Theatre,  The,  a  poem,  270,  n.  2. 

Theatre,  The,  Burbage's  playhouse, 
9,  n.  i;  107,  153,  204/.,  209 /f., 
223/.,  271,  297,  303/.,  311;  its 
removal  to  the  Bankside,  129. 

Theatre  fires,  30,  2,2i  142/-,  196,  213. 

Theatre  programmes,  inf.,  26ijf. 
See  also  Repertory. 

Theatre  tickets,  84,  220,  222,  228, 
263/.^_ 

Theatre  "trusts,"  cooperative  meth- 
ods: The  Theatre-Curtain  pool 
(1585),  153;  Blackfriars-White- 
friars-St.  Paul's  agreement  (1609), 
150,  154;  Elizabethan  joint  per- 
formances, 154;  the  "four  com- 
panies" (161 8),  154;  stock  plays 
divided  between  Restoration  com- 
panies, 52;  the  United  Companies 
(1682),  123/.;  the  Union  of  1707, 
126/.;  Drury  Lane,  Covent  Gar- 
den, pool  (1735),  153/-;  the 
Sheridan-Harris  agreement,  155; 
the  "managerial  compact"  of  ca. 
I799>— 155- 


Theatres,  — 

Elizabethan,  9,  n.;  not  shabby, 
203/.;  size  of,  244,  311/.; 
compared  with  Restoration 
houses  as  to  cost,  212/.  See 
also  "Private"  theatres  and 
"Public"  theatres. 
Post-Restoration,  size  of,  244; 
less  popular  than  the  Eliza- 
bethan houses,  9,  79,  109,  123, 
126.  See  also  Box-office  and 
Theatrical  finance. 
Theatres,   the,   and   the   court,   see 

under  Court. 
Theatrical  advertising,  89,  179,  n.  5; 
241,    258-283;     as    old    as    the 
theatre,   258;    flags   and   proces- 
sions,  259;     posts,   260/.,   hand- 
bills,  261;    newspaper   and   peri- 
odical   advertisements,    265-271 ; 
"added  attractions,"  278/.;   per- 
sonal advertising,  280 jf.    See  also 
under  Ballads,  Playbills,  Theatre 
programmes.  Theatre  tickets.  Free 
list,     Dramatic    criticism.    Press 
agents,  and  Charitable  contribu- 
tions. 
Theatrical  finance,  4,  70,  io5J^.,  196, 
202-221;     current   expenses   of 
the         playhouses         ("house 
charges"),  37,  83,  n.   5;     244; 
incidental     revenue,     215-221; 
see  also  under  Shares  and  Share- 
holding, Actor-sharers,  House- 
keepers, and  Box-office. 
Elizabethan,  —  loans    and    mort- 
gages,    205jf.;      partnerships, 
206;    leases   and  ground   rent, 
2oSff.;   building  cost,  204,  206. 
Post-Restoration,  —    leases    and 
ground  rent,  5,  211/.;    building 
cost,   134,  212^.,  244;    "rent- 
age,"    215;      dealings    in     the 
patents,    see     Patents;      eight- 
eenth    century     high     finance, 

213/-.  256. 
Theatrical  Fund,  General,  of  1838, 
see  Actors*  Benevolent  Fund. 


338 


INDEX 


Theatrical     leases,     see    Theatrical 

finance. 
Theatrical  litigation,  29,  34,  73,  78, 

121,  132/.,  139,  195,  202,  208/. 
Theatrical  monopoly,  after  the  Res- 
toration,   9,    76,    134,    155,    199, 
211.    See  also  under   D'Avenant, 
Killigrew,  aw^/ Theatre  "trusts." 
Theatrical  riots,  see  under  Audiences. 
Theatrical  scouts,  151. 
Theatrical  tradition,  continuity  of, 
3ff;  76/-,  150.  156/-,  203,  218, 
221,  229,  258,  262. 
Theodosius,  40. 
Thomas  Lord  Cromwell,  304. 
Thomson,  James,  53,  and  n.  2;  67. 
Thorndike,  A.  H.,  29,  n.  i;  47,  n.  3; 

234,  n.  I. 
Three  Original  Letters  ...  on  the 
Cause  and  Manner  of  the  Late 
Riot,  1763,  —  50,  n.  6;    144,  n. 
4;  231,  n.  3;   233,  n.  I. 
Tillotson,  Archbishop,  102. 
Tilney,    Edmund,    Master    of    the 

Revels,  198. 
Tobacco,  sold  in  the  theatres,  218/., 

221,  224. 
Tom  Jones,  12. 
Tom  Thumb,  134. 
Tonson,  J.,  50/. 
Tooley,  Nicholas,  96. 
Tourneur,  Cyril,  26. 
Toy,  The,  221,  n. 
Travels     of     the     Three     English 

Brothers,  The,  280. 
Travels  of  Twelve-Pence,  The,  298, 

n.  9. 
Treacherous  Brothers,  The,  60. 
Tricksters,  rope-dancers,  prize-fight- 
ers,   fencers,    and    miscellaneous 
performers,  9,  16,  127,  134/.,  198, 
n.  4;  215,  217,  278. 
Triumphant  Widow,  The,  60,  n.  1. 
True-born  Irishman,  The,  192. 
Tuke,  Sir  S.,  167,  238. 
Tunbridge  Wells,  15,  n. 
Tyrannic     Love,     or,    The     Royal 
Martyr,  282. 


Underbill,  Cave,  79,  88,  96/.,  125, 

268,  279,  283. 
United  Companies,  the,  see  Dramatic 

companies. 

Vanbrugh,  91,  152,  192,  239,  255; 
manager  of  Betterton's  company, 
33l-'i  presents  his  plays  to  the 
actors,  45;  finances  and  builds  the 
Haymarket,  126,  196. 

Venesyon  &  the  love  &  Ingleshe  lady, 
236. 

Venice  Preserved,  40,  50,  145. 

Vennar,  R.,  261. 

Verbruggen,  J.,  97,  113/.,  126. 

Verbruggen,  Mrs.,  97. 

Victor,  B.,  18,  19,  n.  i;  38,  n.  2; 
47,  48,  n.  5;  53,  n.  2;  85,  n.  2; 
93,  n-  3>  n.  5;  102,  139,  141,  n.  i, 
n-  3;  144,  152,  n.  4;  193,  229, 
n.  i;  231/.,  233,  n.  i;  243,  244, 
n.  3;  256. 

Victoria,  Queen,  183,  229. 

Villain,  The,  238. 

Vincent,  S.,  228,  264. 

Virginians,  The,  see  under  Thack- 
eray. 

Virtuous  Wife,  The,  or,  Good  Luck 
at  Last,  227,  n.  3;  283,  n.  2. 

Vision  of  the  Twelve  Goddesses, 
The,  184. 

Volpone,  or,  The  Pbx,  230,  n.  5. 

Waldron,  F.  G.,  229,  n.  i. 

Wales,  Prince  of,  in  1610,  183;    in 

1746,  173;  in  1749,  185;  in  1789, 

181;   in  1793,  197. 
Wallace,  C.  W.,  28,  n.  2;    29,  n.  2; 

71,  n.  i;   72,  n.  2,  n.  3;   75,  n.  i; 

107,  n.  2;    108,  n.  3;    129,  n.  2; 

150.  n-  3;  i53>  n-  4;  154,  n-  3; 
158,  n.  i;  159,  n.  I ;  160,  n.  3; 
162,  n.  2;  195,  n.  2;  196,  n.  i; 
200,  n.  i;  204,  n.  i;  205-207, 
notes;  209,  n.  2;  210,  n.  i,  n.  3; 
272,  n.  I;  276,  306,  308,  n.  i. 
Walpole,  Horace,  10,  n.  i;  13,  103, 
182,  n.  3;   270,  276,  n.  I. 


INDEX 


339 


Walpole,  Sir  R.,  135,  172,  and  n.  2. 
Walsingham,  Sir  F.,  47. 
Wandering  Patentee,  The,  see  under 

Tate  Wilkinson. 
Ward,  Edward,  217,  227,  n.  3. 
Warrington,     George,     see     under 

Thackeray. 
Watson,  M.,  actor,  287. 
Way  of  the  WWld,  The,  191,  n.  3. 
Webster,  actor,  95. 
Webster,  John,  7,  22,  234,  280,  298, 

300,  n.  2;  301,302,  n.  3;   304. 
Welsh  Opera,  The,  134. 
Werter,  39,  n.  i,  65. 
West  Indian,  The,  19,  51,  n.  2. 
Weston,  Thomas,  91,  117. 
Wheatley,  H.  B.,  311,  n.  i. 
Wheatley,  J.,  212,  n.  3. 
White,  A.  F.,  185,  n.  i. 
White,  T.,  204,  n.  2. 
Whitefriars,  the,  theatre,  9,  28,  150, 
207/.,  216,  218,  308/.,  309,  n.  1. 
Whitehall,  private  theatre  at,  161, 

164/.,  176,  179,  188. 
Whitgift,  Archbishop,  188. 
Whyte,  S.,  270,  278,  n.  1. 
Wild  Gallant,  The,  167. 
Wilde,  Oscar,  253. 
Wilkinson,  R.,  264,  n.  3. 
Wilkinson,  Tate,  10,  n.  i;    57,  83, 
n.  i;    86,  n.  i,  n.  3;    88,  90,  n.  i; 
219,  n.  3. 
Wilks,  Robert,  82,  90,  95,  115,  127, 
129,   138;    co-manager  of  Drury 
Lane,  17,  64,  66,  131/.,  178,  263, 
278;    his  acting,  66/.,   126,  266; 
befriends  Savage,  Farquhar,  and 
others,  67. 
Wilks,  Mrs.,  140. 
William  III,  79,  125,  176. 
William  IV,  194. 
Williams,  John,  Bishop  of  London, 

188. 
Wilson,  Richard,  actor,  267. 
Wilson,    Robert,    actor-playwright, 

27,  n- 3- 
Windham,  Sir  T.,  292. 


Windsor,     performances     at,     161, 

175/-,  179- 

Wintersell,  W.,  287. 

Wit  without  Money,  295,  n.  7;   310. 

Withington,  R.,  201,  n.  i. 

Woffington,  Peg,  93,  219,  243. 

Woman  Hater,  The,  309. 

Woman  is  a  Weathercock,  A,  54, 

Woman's  a  Riddle,  116. 

Women  as  dramatists,  see  Play- 
wrights. 

Wood,  Anthony,  226,  294,  n. 

Woodward,  H.,  270. 

Work  for  Armorers,  259,  n.  i;  296, 
n.  3. 

Wotton,  Sir  Henry,  216,  n.  2;  263, 
and  n.  4. 

Wotton,  Lady,  253,  n.  3. 

Wright,  H.,  53,  n.  2. 

Wright,  James,  78,  121/.,  n.  3;  262, 
n.  I. 

Wycherley,  12,  200,  227,  n.  3. 

Wyndham,  H.  S.,  133,  n.  i;  154, 
n.  i;  194,  n.  3;  197,  n.  3;  214, 
n.  i;  229,  n.  2;  233,  n.  i;  269, 
n.  3,  n.  5. 

Ximena,  or.  The  Heroic  Daughter, 
269,  n.  I. 

Yates,  Mrs.,  Restoration  actress, 
288. 

Yates,  Mrs.,  eighteenth-century  ac- 
tress, 1 46. 

York,  Duke  of  (later  James  II),  163, 
184/.  {see  also  James  II);  in 
1766,  136;  Duke  of  York's  Men 
(1612),  160. 

York,  Duchess  of,  wife  of  James  II, 
163. 

York,  Tate  Wilkinson  at,  88. 

Young,  Dr.  Edward,  38,  47,  51. 

Young  Gallant's  Academy,  The, 
228,  n.  3;  see  also  The  Gull's 
Horn  Book. 

Young,  W.,  211,  n.  2. 

Younge,  Miss,  116,    119. 


PRINTED  AT 

THE  HARVARD  UNTVERSITY  PRESS 

CAMBRroCE,  MASS.,  U.S.A. 


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